An effective Evening Routine sets up the following morning for productivity. In the context of productivity, evening routines are just as essential as morning routines. Unfortunately, evening routines do not have much attention focused on them in the media. How can we optimize our evenings for success on the following day?
Why are Evening Routines Important?
Most of the time, a person’s evening routine consists of visiting the bathroom counter and doing their nightly grooming tasks, followed by watching Netflix until falling asleep. This routine is far too common and often leads to inefficient, low-quality sleep; this causes unproductive mornings and could contribute to grogginess throughout the day. But, why and how should we change our evening routines? Evening routines are beneficial for three reasons:
- Unwinding
- High-Quality Sleep
- Rewarding Yourself
1. Winding Down with an Evening Routine
Most often, people go straight to bed after their day of hard work. Their minds are still racing about thoughts from the day with unanswered questions still floating around in their minds. A well-developed evening routine allows you to calm your mind and decompress from a stressful day. Later in the article, habits like taking a warm bath, reading, and journaling are discussed to assist with relaxing and decompressing at the end of a busy day.
2. Ensure a High-Quality Sleep with an Evening Routine
When you are relaxed and prepared for sleep, it is far easier to have higher quality sleep. Your time spent winding down controls the racing thoughts and unanswered questions bouncing around in your mind (the habit of journaling in your evening routine is a huge help in tackling these thoughts). This allows for a clear mind when you’re finally in bed and ready to sleep.
3. Reward Yourself with an Evening Routine
At the end of a stressful and busy day, all we want to do is relax. A proper evening routine makes room for this desire by implementing it into your workday. An evening routine is designed to set up the next day for success before it even arrives; by knowing this, you can feel relaxed and productive at the same time in your evening routine.
Examples of Famous Evening Routines
Before we discuss how to create your own evening routine, why not analyze the evening routines of others? Sometimes learning through example is the best way to learn; perhaps some of these routines inspire you to implement similar habits to your own evening routine.
Tim Ferriss
Tim Ferriss’ evening routine consists of the following checklist items:
- Make a decaffeinated tea containing apple cider vinegar and a tablespoon of honey
- Turn on his soaking tub
- While the soaking tub fills, Ferriss reads fiction to ease his mind
- Fills up thermos with water and ice to use as a foam roller for stretching a few minutes before his tub is full
- Sits in soaking tub with Epsom salts, along with oils and other items to assist with relaxation. Ferriss typically listens to an audiobook or a presentation during this time
- Sits in the sauna, then goes to bed
Ferriss used to suffer from insomnia. However, he credits his consistent evening routine as a partial cure to his insomnia; this relaxing nightly ritual primes Ferriss for a great night’s sleep while allowing him to prepare for the next day.
Ludwig Van Beethoven
Ludwig Van Beethoven often didn’t work in the evening due to his difficulties with creativity around this stretch of the day. At the very latest, Beethoven would go to bed at 10 p.m. He did this in order to optimize his morning routine. By sleeping relatively early, Beethoven was able to ensure he slept for about 7 to 9 hours each night
Benjamin Franklin
At the end of each day, Franklin would ask himself, “What good did I do today?”. This habit was often carried out each evening before going to sleep at midnight. Franklin would reflect on his day and collect his thoughts before retiring each night, like keeping a journal.
How to Make Your Own Evening Routine
After analyzing famous evening routines and understanding the benefits behind evening routines, creating a routine formulated to fit your needs is essential for proper relaxation and ensuring success the following morning. This process is quite similar to formulating a morning routine. If you are struggling to maintain your productivity and stay motivated throughout the morning, our article on Morning Routines details everything you need to achieve successful mornings. Here are four simple steps to making your own evening routine.
1. Identify Desireable Habits
This step outlines what traits you would like to implement in your routine that you find enjoyable and will allow for a better night’s sleep. Here is a brief list of some possible habits that you may want to include in your routine:
- Read
- Prepare Tomorrow's Outfit
- Clean
- Put on Pajamas
- Shave
- Yoga
- Stretch
- Meditate
- Take a Bath
- Drink a Tea (Decaffeinated, Of Course)
- Listen to Soothing Music
- Practice Gratitude
These habits are all excellent practices that benefit the majority of people in their nightly routines. Keep in mind, this list is brief, and your nightly routine may only contain one or two of these habits. Additionally, there are a few habits that we strongly recommend incorporating into your nightly routine; these habits have been shown to help prepare you for the next day. These habits are:
Keeping a Journal
Simply analyzing your day can declutter your mind and relax you before sleeping. Additionally, other habits like practising gratitude and listening to soothing music can be bundled with this. If you would like to learn more about bundling, please read our article on Temptation Bundling. If you have difficulty sticking with a routine, this article is essential for increasing your productivity and maintaining habits.
Many studies have shown the damaging effects of blue light on the brain prior to sleep. Turning off your screens about 1 – 2 hours before bed tends to show the best benefits for high-quality sleep.
Turning Off Screens
Prepare For Tomorrow
This could include creating a to-do list or setting out your outfit for the next day. The goal of this habit is to reduce the amount of randomness you face the following morning; reducing your randomness allows for more mental clarity in the morning and helps you focus on completing tasks early in the day.
Although tempting, snacking before bed does not give your body the opportunity to burn off the calories you consume. Ideally, your body should be in a fast while you sleep; this means your body is working for you to help burn off fat, while you don’t do any active physical work at all. A good general rule to follow is to have your last meal at least 1 – 3 hours before going to bed.
Do Not Snack
2. Order Them by Importance to You
Simply outline which habits you would like to incorporate most. We recommend a numerical list, with the first task being the most important to you and the last few being the least important. The tasks at the top of this list should make you excited and looking forward to your next evening routine. This will ensure that your evening routine is a habit that you would like to continue to execute, and you would like to stick with long-term. A good tool to help you organize your evening routine is an Eisenhower matrix. You can download the Productivity Post Eisenhower Matrix here or at the bottom of the article. An Eisenhower Matrix is similar to the numerical list you already created; it just further organizes the tasks into 4 separate categories. This tool is handy for creating any routine, so we recommend downloading our Eisenhower Matrix in Excel to help you with creating your nightly routine
3. Organize Your Evening Routine
In this step, organize your most important tasks into a timed schedule to complete every night. Ideally, your nightly routine should start and end at the same time every night. This gives your body a cue with the underlying message, ‘time to go to sleep’. Completing the routine at the same time each night conditions your brain to relax and prepare for a night of high-quality sleep.
When organizing your routine, set realistic and attainable timelines for each habit. The last thing you want to be doing during your evening routine is rushing from task to task trying to complete your routine in the allotted time. Furthermore, try and keep your evening routine one hour long or less. This will make the routine more approachable and more likely that you will stick with it on busier days.
4. Execute, Practice, and Modify
The final step is to put this routine into practice. It is unlikely that your new evening routine will be perfect on the first try, so modify it to fit your needs. Additionally, when you would like to improve on newer habits in the future, this routine can be changed in order to fulfil those habits. The first evening routine is not set in stone and is fully modular. The most essential step is practice. Try to carry out this routine every night before bed to ensure a high-quality sleep, reward yourself for your hard work, and wind down from a stressful day.
References
Jack Krier, “The Ultimate Night Routine – The 10 Best Evening Habits”
Cecilia Meis, “11 Steps to Build an Evening Routine and Why You Should”, Published August 1, 2020
Vanessa Van Edwards, “How to Perfect Your Evening Routine for a Better Night’s Sleep”
Sam Thomas Davies, “The Evening Routines Of The Most Successful People”, Published March 2, 2015
Tim Ferriss, “Evening Routine with Time Ferriss”, Published August 24, 2016
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