My husband works full time away from home, I work full time AT home, we both have two children and a household to run. In modern times you can probably see that our arrangement isn’t too out-of-the-norm. There are many families doing the same thing and working on finding routines and schedules that work best for them. If you ask my husband, he would probably tell you that I wake up too late and should be starting our day much sooner than I do. But my morning routine works for us. And in my opinion, that’s all that matters!
I am THE furthest thing from a morning person. I have never (my whole entire life) called myself a morning person. I’m grumpy, I complain, I feel drained and no amount of caffeine will get my body running. After around 10am is when I seem to come alive and have a tendency to get the most work done. My productivity kicks in and my brain seems to work at a higher level of multitasking and organization. Thanks to my genes I’m also a chronic insomniac. I’m up all hours of the night either working on something, reading something, or cleaning. I do my best thinking at night. I always have. So, since I have a tendency to not be able to shut my brain off at night, I also tend to get my best rest in the wee hours of the early morning – sometime between 4am and 8am.
The results I’ve seen from my Fitbit have totally proved this! And instead of trying to fight against my natural tendencies to be a night owl, this year I’ve been working on just going with it. I have to admit I’m much happier and way more productive with this schedule. However, my husband is still irritated that I don’t really get moving until around 9:30am. (I haven’t figured everything out. Now, all I have to do is to try to get him to understand that this is just how I operate. LOL!)
Why am I like this?
Strangely enough, there’s actually a reason why I have never felt like I was a morning person. Looking deeper into my sleep habits I can also tell you that I can’t sleep on trains, planes, in cars, or basically anywhere that’s not an actual bed. When I flew to Australia this was particularly difficult for me because the flight was so long and I just couldn’t rest. I eventually had to drug myself so I could sleep because I knew there was work to do the second I landed. It was rough.
Well, I was watching TV one afternoon and a segment came on that discussed chronotypes and what each one meant. They offered a few quiz to take so you could see which one you fell under and low-and-behold, it described me to a tee. And I was able to learn that, because of my natural chronotype, my body works and operates different than my husband’s. I have a tendency to be more creative and organized and productive during much different times of the day than he does. And if I bet some money on this, and you took this quiz yourself, I’m sure you would see the same results. Especially if you find yourself (or your husband) getting frustrated because you can’t understand why your schedule looks so much more different than your spouse’s.
Take the Quiz.
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Quizzes like this have always been particularly interesting to me. I was a Psychology major in college and I love trying to figure out why I have certain preferences. It’s always been very clear to me that I’ve been an introvert, as I like being alone. But I also thrive in social situations and I love public speaking and teaching. This seems a bit contradictory but, again, there’s a reason for it. And after I discovered Myers-Briggs I knew why! Now that I have found this chronotype quiz and The Power of When (which is on my long list of books to read this winter), I have also discovered that my morning routine actually fits me and there’s nothing wrong with the way I operate. (Regardless of how my husband feels about it.)
My Morning Routine
- My daughter and I wake up and she climbs in the bed with me. We spend a few minutes cuddling and talking about the dreams we had the night before. We talk about what we have planned for the day and how we’re going to tackle things that need to be done. This has become one of my most favorite parts of my morning! She’s only 4 years old and when she gets older and decides she no longer wants to do this, I know my heart is going to hurt for it. So right now, I soak up every morning holding her and giving her kisses.
- Coffee. Always coffee.
- I straighten up my surroundings. If the dishes need to be put away from the night before, I do it. If the trash needs to be taken out, I do it. If my desk is a mess and needs to be straightened up, I do it. A lot of the time there are toys laying in the floor from the night before, so I pick that up as well. I cannot work if my surroundings are a mess! And the chronotype quiz actually explains this. (i.e. – Type A, perfectionist personality for me.)
- After coffee and breakfast, and after I’ve straightened up the house and more-than-likely started a load of laundry I will THEN have a set mind to sit down and begin working. Once I start on a task I have a very hard time stopping it and moving on to something else. For this reason, I try to leave emails as the last thing I tackle. Email has sort of taken the place of texting now that they’re so easy to read and reply on our phones. If I tackle emails first thing in the morning, I’ll get an immediate reply and then feel the pull to continue to reply until we find a stopping point. Because I’m so focused on checking things off of my to-do list I can’t answer emails in the beginning of the day. For me, emails are a never ending process and essentially will “never” be checked off that list.
I would LOVE to hear what chronotype you fall under and whether or not you felt this quiz was accurate!! I’m a dolphin, an extremely light sleeper, perfectionist on tasks, and I can’t shut my mind off at night to sleep unless I’m drugged. All-in-all, this chronotype quiz was EXTREMELY accurate for me and now I have something I can use to back up my reasoning the next time my husband and I have a conversation about my morning routine.
I hope this helps you, too!!
