My Work Morning Routine

In my post on my 2021 work goals, I talked about wanting to keep up with the work routines that I implemented at the end of 2020. A few of you requested to hear about them, so I thought I would share them with you. However, I have a number of routines I follow, so I thought I’d start by introducing you to my morning routine.

Wake up
I aim to wake up at 8am every day, but in all honesty it depends on how well I’ve slept the night before.

30 minutes of ‘me time’
I always start the day with a cup of tea and 30 minutes of ‘me time’. During the winter, as it is at the moment, I sit at my desk, because I have a SAD lamp, but the rest of the year I just stay in bed. If I’m reading a particularly good book, I read for half an hour, but usually I just watch some youtube videos. I also use this time to do some pelvic floor exercises – always a good practice!

Yoga
Once I’ve had my cup of tea, I head downstairs and do ten minutes of yoga. This usually includes hoovering the living room beforehand, because we have four guinea pigs who we allow to roam in the living room during the day in the winter. I just do my yoga in my pyjamas because they give me enough freedom of movement and I don’t have to bother getting changed twice.

Feed the guinea pigs and get them out

Get dressed

Breakfast
I make sure I eat breakfast every day. I have IBS and if I don’t eat regular meals, it makes my symptoms worse. If you want to know more about my journey with IBS, check out my lifestyle blog or my lifestyle instagram page.

Washing up
I hate doing the washing up after dinner, because I work ’til 6pm and tend to eat in front of the TV and don’t want to interrupt my downtime. So I leave it until the morning and it’s one of the first things I do. It’s such a quick and easy task and makes me feel like I’ve achieved something first thing in the day.

Meditate
I try to do 5-15 minutes of meditation every day. As someone who has depression, anxiety and IBS, it’s super important for my health, both mental and physical.

30 minutes of translation
The first work task I do is to get straight into translation. This is something I recently added to my morning routine, because I found it boosted my motivation and mood to feel like I’d made a start on whatever translation task I’m working on first thing.

Regular work
I have a regular job that I do that takes about 10 minutes every day, so I get it done early in the morning.

Vocabulary practice
As a translator, it’s super important to keep up with my language practice. I use flashcards, Duolingo and memrise to practice Arabic, French and German for about half an hour every morning.

Social media
I don’t log onto my work social media until later in the morning. This helps me to avoid ending up in a social media rabbit hole. I also set a timer for five minutes for each social media I have to check to make sure I don’t spend too long replying to messages and commenting on posts.

Emails
The final thing I do in my morning routine is to check my emails. I always get back to clients within a couple of business days, but I find not having my emails on my phone and only checking them at certain times of the day stops me from getting distracted while I work.

What’s your morning routine like? I’d love to hear from you on my instagram page about how you spend your mornings, as I’m always looking to improve me routines!