Clutterbug - Real-Life Hacks and Tips to Declutter, Organize and Clean your Home Fast - The Miracle Morning Routine | Clutterbug Podcast # 19

Episode Date: June 1, 2017

Ensuring you have an amazing day really hinges on your morning. How you wake up and what you do in that first hour can set the tone for your entire day...and your entire life.  A great morning routine can change your life and a great morning routine is also dependant on a great night time routine as well. Listen to my routine and create some for yourself today! Commit to trying your new routines for just ONE week and watch the miracle happen! Want to read the book? Get your copy of The Miracle Morning Here: http://amzn.to/2rXIbI3 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, Clutterbugs. It's Cass from Clutterbug and welcome back to my podcast. Today I wanted to talk to you about a new audiobook that I'm listening to that's pretty amazing. I actually use Audible to listen to my podcast but you can find this at your local library or a lot of different places online. Or of course you can have the paper copy as well but I'm finding this audiobook particularly inspiring. It's called the miracle morning. It's called, again, the miracle morning. And I love, I just love the person who's reading it. I love the tone of their voice and their inflection. It's extremely soothing, but also motivating. And the whole basic principle, I suppose, of the books, you don't have to buy it necessarily, but I do recommend giving it a listen to or a read only because he can put it so

much better than I can. But I'll give you the basic outline and the jest of this. And that is to get up an hour earlier than you normally do, a minimum of an hour, and schedule yourself some time for, you know, personal development. So schedule the time to do those things that you really want to do in your life, to be better, whether it's meditate, do journaling, doing some goal setting, take an hour to read, or exercise. And for me, I need to exercise. I never want to. I can never find the motivation, but I set my alarm for 545 this morning, and I actually got my butt up and out and did a quick run. It was more walking, but there was some running in there too. Came back, did some crunches, responded to emails, had a shake, making my kids breakfast, and all of that

was done before I normally even get up to start the day in the morning. So I feel amazing. I feel amazing. and I wanted to share that with you because it really was, I mean, it's only been day one, so, you know, but I always put these things off. And I think the biggest challenge to my day is the fact that I hit snooze a billion times and I struggle to get out of bed. And then when I finally do get out of bed, it's rushed to get the kids ready, to get them breakfast, to get them on the bus on time. And it sort of sets the tone for my entire day. It's, sets the tone that, you know, it started off as a bad, busy, hectic day and that's sort of how I feel going on. And a lot of the times, you know, I want to crawl back into bed. I want to feel,

I just feel defeated. I feel down, depressed, whatever it is, those feelings that I'm feeling. And I think the snooze button is sort of the catalyst for that feeling. So I'm giving it a try. I'm not a morning person. I am a night person. But I went to bed last night actually feeling excited for this morning. And in the book, he says, you don't have to get up in the morning. You get to get up in the morning. And I just, I found that sort of, you know, eye opening that it's, it's all in your perception of how you look at it. So getting up in the morning for me is always like, oh, grown. I don't want to. I want to stay in my cozy bed. And I see it is as a negative thing. But when I went to bed last night, I just said to myself, I know positive

affirmations, I'm not that type of person, but I was willing to give it a try. So I said to myself, you know, tomorrow's going to be a great day. You get to get up early and you get to have an hour to yourself before anybody is waking up to do something great for yourself. And I went to bed with those thoughts. So when my alarm went off at 545 this morning, I was still feeling those thoughts. I woke up feeling like, yes, you get to get up and have this hour for yourself. And it was that small change in thinking. It was that small sort of, you know, I guess change in my perception, my perspective of what the morning was going to be like that has made all the difference for my day. So I wanted to share that with you guys because I found it so motivating and I plan on continue doing my

miracle morning, waking up an hour earlier and just giving my day an amazing start instead of a rush, slow, hectic, stressful start. And that leads me into something else that I wanted to share with you guys and that is your nighttime routine because I think a successful morning really hinges on the fact that you have a successful nighttime routine. And setting up the night before is an easy thing that you could do. It just takes a few minutes. So I'll give you an example of what I've done. I've always make the kids lunch at night, but they have a hot lunch part. Like part of their lunch is always hot as well. So I set out what I'm going to make them in the morning. So it's all ready to go. And what I've also been doing is setting out my breakfast in the morning. So I want to have a protein shake. And

morning and some fruit but I always get up in its laziness that just I you know when I don't do it I grab a cookie or I grab a granola bar or you know something something fast and and to the point but when I've taken the time to sort of plan my breakfast the night before and I've set out the blender and I've set out the you know the things I need to make my shake it's just I don't even think about it it's second nature in the morning I'm tired I wake up you know and that and that's what I gravitate to, the thing that has been prepared the night before. I also take the time to do a cleaning routine every night, and it's only about 15 minutes, but I take the time to sort of give my home a hug, I say, and clean the kitchen, do a quick spot mop, make sure the counters

are really clutter-free, and when I wake up in the morning, I feel refreshed, and I don't feel that, ugh, the kitchen's a mess, that feeling that you feel. when you have a messy kitchen. So I settle the breakfast, I quickly clean, I prepare things for my kids lunch. And the last thing I do is I set out some clothes for myself. Whatever I'm going to wear the next day, I set that out at night as well. And it's all these little things that can make your morning great. It's having a great nighttime routine that can make your, not only your morning great, but your entire day great the next day. So I wanted to share that with you and hopefully motivate you. What I do recommend you do is grab a paper and a pen and quickly just write a nighttime

routine and then write down your next morning routine. So I'll give you my nighttime routine. I clean the kitchen. I do a quick spot mop. I make sure that any clutter that's laying around is quickly picked up and just really quickly picked up. And I generally, you know, lay out my clothes, lay out the breakfast for the next day and get the kids lunches ready the night before. So that's my nighttime routine. And my morning routine now, my new morning routine, da-da-da-da-da, is to go for a walk or a run in the morning.

I do 20 crunches and 10 push-ups only because I can only do 10. I'm hoping to get both of these higher numbers, but I'm like super out of shape, you guys. And I have a shake. I do some journaling in the morning, which is something new that I'm loving. And then I do my like daily goal setting, my to-does for the day. So that is my morning routine. And of course that also includes, you know, unloading the dishwasher from the night before and making my bed.

Though that's, yeah, that's it in a nutshell. But I'm feeling really great. So I wanted to share it with you because I want you guys to feel great as well. And I think perception or your perspective has so much to do with just how your day goes. The attitude that you have in the morning can really determine the outcome of your entire day. So if you wake up at the morning feeling really positive, even if you're not feeling positive, if we fake it till we make it, right? My friends, if you're waking up in the morning, you're like, oh, the house is a mess, and I don't want to, you know, do the daily grind. Let's be honest. It is a

grind every day. We have to do laundry. We have to clean. We have to do breakfast. We have to clean the breakfast dishes. Make your bed. It's just the same chores over and over again. And it can feel a little blah. But if we change it from looking at it as a chore or something we have to do, and we tell ourselves that it's something we get to do, that it's something that we're doing for us, that it's blessing our house, and it's giving, you know, happiness to not only ourselves, but our family. I call it giving my home a hug when I do a quick tidy. That can really change how we're looking at the cleaning and the housework, and it can motivate us to want to do it.

and a little bit a day, a little bit, like 15 minutes in the morning and 15 minutes at night to keep up on things is really all you need to have a great, clean, tidy, and just positive home. It really is a positive home. When I was living in clutter, when I, oh man, I was a slob, I still fall off the wagon sometimes too, but I noticed that it affected my mood. It really affects your mood when you are surrounded by clutter or dirty dishes. And you may not even know, you know, that that is the cause. You may just feel down. You may feel your energy is zapped or you're just not feeling, you know, like you are feeling great or happy and you don't know the reason why. Take a look around your home. If your environment is cluttered and messy, the inside of you can feel

cluttered and messy too. It really is a reflection of how you're feeling on the inside. And it's a lot easier to take a few minutes to change the outside to tidy it up than it is sometimes to, you know, lift our spirits and lift our mood. So that's my little share with you today. I'm going to keep you guys posted how my miracle morning goes. I am not a morning person. So I surprised myself today by getting up early and just reminding myself as I was falling asleep that I get to wake up in the morning and have some me time. And to tell myself that I was excited about it instead of dreading it really made me wake up the next morning feeling exactly that. And we've heard it a thousand times, you know, the book, The Secret, or I mean, you just have to listen to Oprah for five seconds

to any really, you know, successful person will say that it's the power of thinking, it's positive thoughts, it's positive affirmations that can change your life. So we've heard this all before to the point where it almost sounds cliche, right? And it does. To me too, it's like, oh, okay, you know, positive affirmations. But then when you actually do it, when you take the time to actually say those positive things to yourself or force yourself to look at something that you've always perceived as a negative thing, as a positive thing instead, it really is life-changing. I mean, all of these people, successful people, are telling us this for a reason, and it's because it works. So I want you to look at your housework a little bit differently. I want you

to tell yourself today that, you know, you get to have a clean kitchen. and that you deserve and your family deserves to have a clean kitchen with tidy counters and and, you know, a beautiful kitchen that's nice and clean. You deserve that. And you can give yourself that in just a few minutes. And maybe you'll want to then, you know, pick of a sponge, do them dishes or clean the counter or clear off some clutter, do a little bit of decluttering. You know, it's a gift to yourself. It's a gift to your home. It's a gift. It's a gift to your home. It's a to your family. And when you look at it that way, it really can get you excited and motivated to keep going. So thank you guys so much for listening to Clutterbug for more organizing tips, motivation,

and all that good junk. Check out my YouTube channel. All you have to do is Google Clutterbug, Andy. You'll find me. I'm out there. And thanks again. I'll see you next time.