I’ve always loved a routine, whether it’s getting up at the same time every morning, or having lunch at the same time every day. For me, a routine helps me to organise my day, plan my time and get things done without too much procrastination. However, my evenings have always been pretty relaxed and I was noticing that I was feeling more tired than usual so I decided to see what happened when I changed my evening routine for a specific period of time.

What Happened When I Changed My Evening Routine 

When I was a child my parents were pretty strict about bedtimes. I was never allowed to stay up late on a school night and at weekends staying up past a certain time was considered a treat. As an adult, I am obviously responsible for ensuring that I go to bed and get enough sleep, however, I’m also someone who will happily sit and watch TV until the early hours, or will read a book until I fall asleep. This is obviously not particularly helpful for ensuring that I am awake and productive the next day.

With the office where I work being closed I was suddenly finding myself with a complete change in my morning and evening routine. The daily commute was no longer an issue, I no longer had to wait until 7pm before having dinner, and I could focus a little more on myself and my personal time.

Make a To-Do List  

I love a to-do list so this is nothing new for me. However, this wasn’t always something I did every day as working in an office bought about its own schedule and work plan. Working from home was different, I suddenly found that I needed to be more structured with my work schedule. I kept this very simple by ending my work day by jotting down on a post-it the basic tasks that I needed to do the next day.

Check My Diary

I’m usually pretty good with remembering appointments, I usually just check my diary once a week to remind myself of the times of any appointments and know what I need to do to prepare. Working from home suddenly made this very different, without a daily commute, face-to-face meetings and having other events to look forward to I found myself losing track of days and weeks, I therefore needed to become more aware of what I was doing each day and that checking my diary was a lot more important than before.

Have Some Me-Time

As I had changed my working schedule during the day I was able to free up some time in the evenings, this time could then be used for other enjoyable and relaxing activities, suddenly I had more time for a long hot bath, reading, watching a film or some TV, and batch cooking for multiple days. Freeing up some time for things I enjoy ensured a more restful night’s sleep.

I know that the last six months have been stressful, traumatic and overwhelming, with so much uncertainty it has been difficult to know just how to see the positives. If I can take one thing from this year though, it would be that when I changed my evening routine I also managed to refocus my routine, become a little more productive in both work and personal interests and, at times improve my sleep quality.

Have you changed your evening routine?

Let me know in the comments.