In our daily lives, it is easy for certain bad habits to constantly bring about other bad habits.In the long run, these bad habits will make you enter a vicious circle, making you feel that life is always boring and work has no passion. In fact, to break this cycle, we can start by developing good habits.
When your day is structured to get your best work done, you begin every workday with a sense of clarity, purpose, and satisfaction.
Darren Hardy, editor-in-chief of Success Magazine and author of The Compound Effectargues that a person’s morning and evening routines are the “bookends” of a successful life.
When you build better morning and evening routines, you prepare your brain to be better equipped to face the varying challenges each day brings.
Building routines aren’t easy. It takes self-discipline, and practice to make it work. But the good news is that once you’ve practised a routine for a good number of days it gets harder not to do them.
Stick with it, and your life will never be the same.
Evening routines can set you up for a for a better day tomorrow.
“Maintaining healthy habits is a good idea at any time of the day, but certain ones can give you more bang for your buck when done before bed,” says Rachel Daniels, RD, senior director of nutrition at Virtual Health Partners in New York.
The time at the end of each day is just as valuable as the time at the beginning. The following 8 effective nighttime habits will help you better prepare for the next day’s work and life, and make your worries and frustrations gradually reduce or even disappear completely.
1. Get ready for tomorrow today
This is one of the most important things you can do before tomorrow morning.
If you wake up too late, you can’t decide what to wear in a short period of time, or you even forget to bring the documents you need for today’s meeting before going out, etc.In this way, your day will be chaotic. Therefore, be sure to plan your arrangements for the next day in advance on the first night.
Spend your last 20 minutes every day to reflect, process, and prioritise for the next day. End your day on purpose.
At home, most people get their work clothes ready, exercise gear out and ready for morning exercise, and get all the relevant documents that they need to use for the next day ready before they sleep.
To prepare better, you could write down how you want to spend your morning. If you do this, you will wake up and know exactly what you need to do to make your day a success.
You will become more effective and more productive because you’re ready and everything is within your reach.
2. Create a shutdown ritual
In our daily lives, we are often interrupted by various emails, messages or phone calls. Most of them are not urgent, but they keep us in a state of “charge” and prevent us from truly relaxing even after get off work.
Although it is not a big deal to take your work home or even to bed. But this approach keeps your brain thinking about work-related things, which may directly affect your sleep.
You gotta get your brain out of “work mode” to have a better and relaxing evening.Give yourself a buffer period between the time you read your last email at work and the time you go to bed.
Plan your evenings to help you clear your head. It will help you go to bed feeling less stressed and allow you to sleep better, with a clearer mind.
Michael Woodward, Ph.D., organisational psychologist and author of “The YOU Plan,” agrees. “The last thing you need is to be lying in bed thinking about an email you just read from that overzealous boss who spends all their waking hours coming up with random requests driven by little more than a momentary impulse.”
Create a ritual so you can detach from work the minute you get home.
Make it a habit and end your day with it. Know when to stop working, even during the work day. Organize your desk, shut down your computer, and make a to-do list for tomorrow. Put yourself in “off mode” and develop habits of self-control and active living, and you’ll have a different day the next day.
3. Establish a restorative place to unwind
If you look at a screen all day, you need physiological and psychological resources to help you wind down.
But if you’re really tired, curling up on the couch and watching TV all night isn’t the most effective way to relax.
Find somewhere you feel comfortable, happy and relaxed — and spend 20 minutes there just to focus on calming yourself.
It could be a place to do absolutely nothing.
The most important thing to remember is to create a relaxing ritual that tells the brain that work is over.
“Getting changed and having a shower as soon as you arrive home signals to the brain that you have finished for the day, as can short household chores — so long as you don’t usually see them as work,” says Prof Cropley.
4. Make time to reflect
“At the end of each day, you should play back the tapes of your performance. The results should either applaud you or prod you.” — Jim Rohn
Benjamin Franklin famously asked himself the same self-improvement question every night:
“What good have I done today?”
Reflection is a very simple thinking exercise that allows you to further evaluate what you have experienced. It only takes 5 minutes a day, but the impact these 5 minutes will have on the next day is extraordinary. It is worth noting that while reflecting on what you did not do well enough, you must also take time to reflect on what you did well. Even if you feel like what you’re doing is nothing, as long as it’s good for you, you should celebrate yourself.
Research shows writing down what you need to do the next day relieves anxiety and helps you enjoy your evening
5. Focus on mastery experiences
The time after work is yours to manage.
Some people spend time on their passion projects and work towards their dream career or vision.
Or better still, you can focus on personal development.
It’s the opportune time you can leverage to master a new experience.
In addition, you can also spend time on what you are good at, strive for excellence, and become an expert in something. In short, what you should do is actively engage in what you want to do, rather than lazily slumping on the sofa.
Using 30 minutes or less of your evening to pursue something meaningful to you will immensely improve not only your total well being but a sense of self-worth.
Make time for something you have a natural interest in.
6. Read something you enjoy
Experts agree that reading is the very last thing most successful people do before going to sleep — US President Barack Obama and Bill Gates are known to read for at least a half hour before bed.
Reading is a great de-stressor.
Reading is a good habit that should be done at night to both force you to go to bed early and keep you focused. But the premise is that you must choose books you like.
When you go to sleep, your brain is going to consolidate what you just read, which is pretty nice.
If you like to read in bed, it is recommended that you choose paper books.It will help clear your mind and make it easier for you to prepare for sleep. Compared with paper books, the potential disadvantage of e-books is that the brightness of the screen and the type of light source will interfere with your sleep, thus affecting your sleep.
7. Cut out the blue light!
Blue light from tablets, laptops and smartphones interferes with falling asleep because it suppresses melatonin, an essential hormone for sleep.
Devices can be very stimulating and stimulation is the last thing you need when trying to fall asleep at night.
Meanwhile, digital gadgets aren’t the only culprits; to avoid blue light from your lamps, switch to bulbs that have a low colour temperature.
Richard Wiseman, professor of psychology at the University of Hertfordshire and bestselling author of Night School: Wake up to The Power of Sleep, adds:
“Ten minutes of a smartphone in front of your nose is about the equivalent of an hour long walk in bright daylight. Imagine going for an hour long walk in bright daylight and then thinking, “Now I’ll get some sleep.” It ain’t going to happen.”
So no screens, at least an hour before bed.
8. And prioritise sleep!
It can be easy to minimize the importance of sleep, but it’s absolutely essential for optimum performance.
Good sleep on a regular basis is critical to maintaining balanced mental, emotional, and physical health.
Stick to the same sleep and wake schedule.
Enter your bedroom and disconnect yourself from work chores. Allow yourself to relax and prepare for sleep so that you can start the next day of work and life energetically.