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I Burned Out on My Own Routine Until I Turned the Checklist Into a Menu
What this is
My morning and evening routine blocks were turning into the times of day I dreaded most because my perfectionist nature made me feel like I was failing every time I couldn’t check off all the boxes. This post is a breakdown of what shifted for me, so I feel less pressure but still have that time dedicated to myself. I’ve included the things I still strive to “check off” every day if I can, even when time is minimal. The full menu, including all 40+ options I pick from when I have more than 5 minutes, is available for paid subscribers, where you can make a copy and turn it into your own menu.
How a checklist turned into a menu
We’ve all heard that having a morning routine or an evening routine is a great way to signal to your body what’s ahead, and it’s often where most people’s ‘self-care’ fits into their day. Whenever I create a long list with checkboxes, my perfectionist brain wants ALL of them checked every day. If I added all the things I’m interested in or want to build habits around, or the tools I’ve tried over time, I think it would take the whole day to attempt to complete it and I would fail. So when I had the long list and I couldn’t get everything done, I started feeling anxious and like I had failed. The routine that was supposed to help me start and end my day in the best way possible was the thing wearing me out.
I had to change my mindset and give myself permission to look at it differently. Having the list of all the options written out alleviates so much mental load, so I didn’t want to give that up. But I decided I would treat it like a menu rather than a checklist, and changing my mindset around that reduced the pressure I was putting on myself. When I’m tired at the end of the day, just thinking of things I can do to wind down adds to my tiredness. If the list is there, it’s pick one (then maybe more if there’s time or energy), and that’s good enough. I’m all about reminding myself lately that there is such a thing as good enough, and I don’t have to be the best and perfect at everything that I do.
What I pick depends on how the day is going. In the morning, I look at whether I slept well, what the calendar looks like, how my kids slept, and whether I have five minutes to spare or an hour. At night it’s the same idea: if we have sports and we get home and it’s late and I’m tired, the evening routine is a lot shorter. I also have some non-negotiables - the things I try to do no matter what. If you choose to try this method, your non-negotiables will be different from mine, but they should take a very minimal amount of time and effort, and then all the other things on the list are there as time or energy is available.
Oftentimes I’ll get in a routine or pattern with a certain few items on the list and do those repeatedly for a few days or a few weeks, or even a few months, and then one thing or another leads to it dropping off. Instead of feeling guilty or feeling shame that I couldn’t keep the routine going, I’m starting to reframe that. When I forget to (or just can’t) do something for a few days in a row, I take that as my body telling me it’s time to pause that one and maybe pick up something else.
Where I keep the menu so I actually use it
I’ve kept this list in a few different places while trying to find what works best for me. The most basic is a notebook or journal where you brain dump all of the things and use that for future reference. Easy. My type A personality may have done that and then typed it up, printed it out, laminated it, and used a dry erase marker to check things off daily.😂 If that feels too perfectionist for you, a reference sheet printed out and taped to your mirror works too. You could have it as a list in your Apple Notes app, or as a reminder on your calendar that lists out the options in the description. I’ve done all of those things to figure out the most visible way for me to SEE it and DO it with consistency.
For me, the hardest part is remembering to even start the routine. I need the actual reminder, because again, there’s so much going on in my head. I have pretty much fully converted my entire life to Todoist, an app that keeps to-do lists, so I have a recurring task every morning and every evening, and within that task I have a list of all the different options. Having recurring tasks every day helps me get into that routine and rhythm. A calendar reminder could do the same thing if you live in your calendar.
My routine menu is another kind of “perpetual list”, the same idea as the lists I keep in Trello from last week’s post. Trello is the system I usually keep lists in, so if you’re not micromanaging your day in a calendar like I am, Trello would be a great place to keep this list too. Again, the idea is to put the list SOMEWHERE so you can set the mental load down around remembering those things, and then the task is to DO it rather than REMEMBER it.
When even picking from the menu feels like too much
I’ve gone through a lot of iterations of how to remove more and more of the mental load in my life. Having a go-to list helps with that. However, sometimes just having a blank “pick something” from the menu can still feel overwhelming to me, so picking just one item sometimes gives me the momentum to pick another. Start with just one or two things as part of your “routine,” and when those feel stable and easy, consider adding another. For me these days, I’m all about merging the logical with the woo, so oftentimes when it’s not easy for me to “pick something” off the menu, I will use a pendulum or muscle testing to see what my body is calling for. For me, that’s my body telling me versus my brain, and my brain wants to do ALL the things, but my body can’t handle that. Muscle testing is a way for me to find the answer more quickly without my mental body getting too involved. If you’re intrigued by my woo methods I’m happy to share more on that. If you’re stuck and can’t pick, try something like just have your kids pick a number randomly and do that one to start – lol. Just ANYTHING, to get the momentum going.
The things I still do when I have no time
Below are my baseline items. They’re a mix of morning and evening habits, they take minimal time, and I can feel the difference in my day and night when I do them versus when I don’t. I consider these my non-negotiables (but let’s be real, sometimes even these can’t happen, and that’s okay). Your non-negotiables will be different!
One-minute energy clearing meditation. This is a grounding exercise where I envision how I want my day to go, what feelings I want to have, and how I want to interact with people. I ground into the energy of Earth & Source, receive energy back from Earth & Source, clear my energy field, and call in the vibes I’m looking for that day. When I intentionally take that one minute first thing in the morning, my day usually goes a lot smoother. I know it’s woo, but it’s working for me, so I try to make time for it!
Early morning sunlight in my eyes, and the sunrise walk. Having sunlight in my bare eyes early in the morning has really made a big difference in my day-to-day since I started doing it last year. I try to do it before I’m on my phone, and I’m not always successful at that, but getting outside and facing the sun as it’s rising, or within 1 hour of waking up, can really help to set your circadian rhythm. I know that for a lot of women my age, or with little kids, sleep is one of the first things to get wonky when we are stressed, and bad sleep has a domino effect on everything else. I’ve found that focusing on sunlight has made a big difference in my ability to sleep well. The key is naked eyes, so no glasses or contacts (I tuck my glasses into my shirt because I’m blind and put contacts on when I get home). I try to do my early morning sunlight combined with a walk, just to kill two birds with one stone and get a little bit of movement in, but if I’m limited on time the walk is the first thing I cut. Even just standing outside for 5 minutes, or sitting and eating my breakfast while facing the sun as it’s rising, can make a huge huge difference.
A glass of water first thing. Before I take that walk or sit outside, and really before anything else, I try to drink one glass of water. If I chug it before I go outside, it really just sets the tone for the day, and I end up drinking a lot more water overall. It wakes up your digestion, and it basically tells your body you’re awake. I feel like a lot of us struggle to drink enough water even when we’re carrying our emotional support water bottles around everywhere, and just chugging one glass has made a difference for me. It only takes seconds, so I try to do it even when I’m low on time.
Supplements and homeopathic remedies. I set a reminder in my Todoist app to take my supplements and my homeopathic remedies every day. I have definitely noticed that when I don’t take my supplements (my multivitamin and the other things I’m taking), my energy and overall feeling of wellbeing are lower than on the days that I do. However, I’m sometimes taking 10+ pills a day, and I absolutely don’t have time to be doling them out of multiple bottles every day. If I had to do that, I would for sure get annoyed after a couple of days and just skip it, or forget more days than I was taking them. My efficient brain said there had to be another way, so I tried a variety of pill boxes but these absolutely were the winners because they hold my handful of supplements with ease. Most pill boxes couldn’t come close to holding all my supplements but this one does! I guess I’ve reached old lady status lol. Now I spend 15 minutes every 3 weeks and fill 3 of them up, and then it takes me approximately 5 seconds to take my supplements every day because they’re already all measured out and ready to go. I learned that for me to be consistent, I needed the process to be as easy as possible, so I found the tool that works for me, and this is a non-negotiable in my routine now.
Blue light glasses. At night this is a pretty easy thing to do. As soon as the sun goes down, I put them on, and they help me fall asleep more quickly and stay asleep. These days people are just so inundated with blue light, from phones, computers, TVs, and iPads, but also even the can lights and most lamps in our houses. That much blue light after sunset can really screw with your circadian rhythm, and a simple thing we can do to reduce it is to wear blue light blocking glasses after sunset.
Skincare routine. Even when I’m so tired, have no time, and am just ready to get in bed, I take 5 minutes to do my most basic skincare routine (which is not elaborate by any stretch, it’s just a couple of products - on days with more time I do more). It really just helps end the day and reminds my body that it’s time for bed. This post isn’t for what I’m currently using, but maybe I’ll do that for one in the future 😊
Opening my lymph system. I actually try to do this one both morning and night, but I think it’s most important at night, so you can set your body up to do some clearing while you’re sleeping. It’s easy to do even if I only have a few minutes, because I can do it while lying in bed. I open the specific 7 lymph spots on my body per @doc.talks.detox on IG. It takes about 1 to 2 minutes and helps prime my body to do its detoxing work overnight. When I do it in the morning, it helps to clear anything that built up overnight and start the day off clear. If you have sluggish lymph (bloating, swelling, congestion, etc) this is a must!
Obviously I try to do more than these as much as I can, but when time is really a factor, all except the sunrise walk take less than 5 minutes. There’s really very little excuse when I have it as a reminder and the mental load of remembering is gone. When it’s just there as something to check off, I’m more likely to do it.
My routine for when I have zero time is above, but the full breakdown of my menu, and what I actually do when I have more than 5 minutes, is available for paid subscribers. It has all 46 options sorted by type, my zero-time items are bolded so you can see the floor, and there are blank lines in every category for you to add your own. I made it so I never have to figure out my options when I’m subconsciously looking for reasons not to do it, and you don’t have to either. Keep it in its current form or transfer it to the place/method you keep your lists.
Interested in seeing it? Upgrade to a paid subscription and it’s yours immediately along with all the other resources in my growing library.
I’d love to know what’s on your non-negotiable list for either the morning or the evening. What am I missing in my routine?? I’ll add it to my menu for the future😄
Talk soon,
Kristen ❤️
I think if it were to write, I would not be able to do it either! As it is, I do get up about 5:30 to do about an hour of cardio. I do it for 2 reasons: first, I really love to eat junk, and second, I need it so that I don’t throat punch mostt people.