My Evening Routine
Morning routines are, at this point, almost common knowledge, for the strange set of people interested in rationality, productivity, and San Francisco-branded self-control. (I have yet to find a good name for this group, but Ferrites might work well). There is a website and newsletter dedicated to them, even: mymorningroutine.com.
My own routine is simple, and I’m sure I’ve mentioned it here before. Recently, I’ve started wondering why I don’t also have an evening routine. Properly done, it would lead to better sleep, less stress, and an easier morning the next morning, as there wouldn’t be anything left undone.
So, I’ve started implementing one. It goes like this:
- No coffee after 4pm. As I’ve recently embarked on another paleo-reset month (all the fats), this isn’t that much of an issue, as I’m limiting myself to a cup of coffee before noon.
- Clean the house and do all the dishes. I want to wake up to a clean house, because I don’t feel like I have to do small admin tasks, and because I’ve noticed that I can procrastinate for hours doing basic housekeeping if I let myself. By removing the obvious spots, I can settle into work easier.
- Write up a review of the day. I write a few paragraphs — normally three or four — going through how the day went, how I felt, what I could have done better. There’s no formula for this (although there ought to be, I think), but I like the process of remembering how a day was. This needs to be done on the day of — otherwise, it is too easy to miss it and forget, or for it to become a burdensome task the next day.
- Take a bath or a hot shower. I have no conclusive evidence for this at the moment; looking online, I’ve seen conflicting evidence for the usefulness of this. Based on anecdotal experience, though, I’m unlikely to do work between an evening shower and bed, and more likely to think about things which aren’t related, giving myself space. This is more important than the possible muscle relaxant; by putting a divider in the evening, I tend to stop working myself up about this or that problem, and I can go to sleep thinking about other things.
- Turn off all of the heaters in the house. Save electricity. While you’re at it, drink a large glass of water.
- Read. I read at least a chapter in something before going to bed, normally for thirty minutes. Fiction is best. I look forward to this time all day, because it’s one of the few moments when I give myself leave to focus on a book (unfortunately). I’m working on ways to allow this to happen throughout the normal day, too.
This works pretty well for me. I’ve noticed I sleep better, and when I wake up, I more likely to approach the day with a healthy and excited attitude, because I don’t have many tasks to do to clean up the previous day’s work.
What do you do before going to bed?
