Exercise/Movement

I spend about 10 to 15 minutes walking/jogging, then 10 to 15 minutes doing pilates or weight exercises. I stay faithful by telling myself that twenty minutes isn’t very long, then once I’m moving, I can spend more time there.

Quiet time

I used to do this first as a outward signal that it was the most important to me. But I found that I would start to nod off and not really be as connected with the Lord. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I was still waking up, I was wrapped in a blanket in a cold dark house and I wasn’t getting as much out of it.

So I decided to exercise and move first and it made all the difference. Here’s what I do during my quiet time with the Lord:

Read – I read my Bible on my iPad because I have tons of different translations on there and can highlight sections and easily come back to them within the app. I usually read a few chapters a day, unless I’m really focusing on a particular story or section.

Journaling/Prayer – after I read, I journal.

I should say as a side note that I’ve worked to digitized my life.

My calendar, to do list, tasks, etc are all digital. I used to write notes and blog posts on paper, but I’ve switched to Evernote for that. I used to have a to do list on paper, but I switched to Trello, my calendar is on Cozi.

And as I just mentioned, even my Bible reading is digital.

But one thing I haven’t switched is my journaling, and I don’t intend to. There’s something about writing that solidifies what God is trying to teach me. Plus, I love going back to past journals and see what He’s done in my life.

So after I read my Bible, I talk to God through a prayer journal.

Sometimes I’m telling Him what I’ve learned from the passage, sometimes there are prayer requests in there, sometimes it’s me venting.

If I feel Him speaking to my heart, I’ll write it in there like a conversation. Like i said, I like having my life portable and digital, but this is one thing that I won’t switch.

At the beginning of each year (and sometimes throughout the year), I will type out the vision that I feel God has for me that year.

If I have specific prayer requests that I am focusing on, I’ll fold that into my prayer journal and it acts like a bookmark that I read/pray through each day. For instance, a few years back, we were really struggling with finding good employees for our small business. Every morning I would pray that God would send loyal, dependable, and honest people who needed a job and were qualified for the jobs we had available.

Planning

The last part of my miracle morning is to plan my day.

I use an app called Cozi. (See a Tutorial HERE.)  It has really changed my life! I have it set up to email me the day’s agenda each morning, so I can look at the notifications that pop up on my lock screen without even opening my phone.

Then each Sunday evening, it sends me a recap of the following week, so I can plan ahead.

I have found that just taking 5 minutes every morning to refocus and remind myself about the day’s events keeps everything in check for me.

In the Cozi app, I can set recurring tasks, so every Monday morning, it reminds me to make sure my boys pack their library books in their backpacks, it reminds me that it’s trash day every Wednesday, if I put dates in my to do list, they show up in my calendar as well.

It’s a free tool that just streamlines our schedule super nicely.

I also check my tasks in Trello. This is a task management system. Here’s a link to a tutorial made by Kelsey VanKirk.

If the boys are taking their lunch to school the next day, I make lunches the night before and put their little lunch boxes in the fridge, then in the morning, they know to grab their lunches and put them in their backpacks.

Pick up the house – nothing will drain your energy first thing in the morning than looking at a messy house. It just makes you want to go back to bed. So I usually pick up the kitchen and the living room before bed.

Plan dinner the next day – I take food out of the freezer, make sure I have everything I need for dinner the next evening.

Pick out clothes for tomorrow – when I do this in the evening, I can make sure things are ironed, and clean. That makes it super easy and fast to just throw clothes on in the morning.

Last look at tomorrow’s schedule – I look at my calendar to make sure that there’s nothing I haven’t missed for the next day.

I fix my mindset – the last thoughts I used to think in the evening were “oh man, I’m only going to get 5,6,7 hours tonight.” Now, I think “I’m excited to wake up in the morning and live out God’s purpose for me today”

Even if I don’t feel like it, I think it anyway. I choose to believe that God has something incredible for me the next day and that makes me excited to wake up.