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In this episode of the podcast, we are talking about evening routines. Routines help us to calm the chaos of life. Our morning routines turn our focus outward toward the day. They cultivate productivity. Our evening routines, on the other hand, turn our focus inward. They cultivate rest, relaxation, and connection. Our evenings are a precious time, too often squandered. Listen in for how you can build a better evening routine.
S2E28 – My Reading Goals for this year + My Top 5 Books for 2024 – A More Beautiful Life Collective Podcast
Everyone should set a reading goal! Reading is so beneficial for you: both for your mind and for your character. How can we prioritize reading this year? By setting reading goals! Read on to learn about some benefits of reading and why you should set a reading goal. I also give some great recommendations for your next favorite read. Read more at the blog post: https://amorebeautifullifecollective.com/why-you-should-set-reading-goals/ Get our AMBL Book Bingo Challenge Here:https://amorebeautifullifecollective.com/product/the-ambl-book-bingo-reading-challenge-expand-your-reading-life/ Want to keep track of your reading? Check out our reading trackers here: https://amorebeautifullifecollective.com/product/50-book-reading-challenge-free-coloring-tracker/ Visit our Shop to get a copy of any of the resources mentioned in this episode: I’m your host, Cayce Fletcher, and you can learn a little bit more about me here. While you’re here, would you consider leaving a comment, rating, or review? You can find our podcast, A More Beautiful Life Collective Podcast, wherever you listen to podcasts. Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, or watch on YouTube. Subscribe to the blog for access to our latest content and some freebies. Want to support A More Beautiful Life Collective in the creation of podcasts, posts, and other resources? You can make aone-time, monthly, or yearly donation here. I love creating and sharing resources with you. You can find all of our resources at A More Beautiful Life Collective Shop.Keep creating a life you love, and cultivating your heart for God.
Welcome to Season 2 Episode 24 of A More Beautiful Life Collective Podcast. As we head into the New Year, it’s so important to establish solid routines built on habits that help us reach the goals that we have set for ourselves.
We just finished up the holiday season. I think it’s so important to break routines for a bit for celebration and feasting. There is something special about feasting – staying up late, putting up the decorations, visiting family and friends – and just stepping outside the norm.
But, we can’t always live in a perpetual state of celebration and feasting. Once the New Year rolls around, we often desire the ‘normal’ state of life. Just like we crave the festivities of the holidays, we crave the routine of the mundane. The key is always balance.
We’ve been talking about routines on the show – what routines to make and how to craft an ideal morning routine. I mentioned in our morning routine episode that to establish a good morning routine we need to prepare the night before.
Today, we are going to talk about how we can prepare for our mornings through a solid evening routine.
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What’s so important about an evening routine?
An evening routine is what sets you up for a positive outcome the following day.
A good evening routine will help you:
- Wind down from a busy day
- Connect with your family
- Do things that rejuvenate you
- Set yourself up for the best sleep possible
This can lead to more restful sleep, higher productivity levels, and better mental health. And, it makes it so much easier to have a life-changing morning routine.
We all recognize the importance of having a solid bedtime routine for our kids to help clue their brains that it’s time to wind down and get sleepy. But, really we operate the same way.
Marguerite Ward and Erin McDowell of BusinessInsider state, “The last thing you do before bed tends to have a significant impact on your mood and energy level the next day, as it often determines how well and how much you sleep. But it can be difficult to fall asleep if you’re stressed. This is especially true now, as many Americans struggle to cope with nationwide unrest. There are some strategies you can adopt to help yourself relax before bed. Good bedtime routines are key for successful people, who depend on getting enough sleep to help them through their busy days.”
Many of us continue to try (and sometimes fail) to create solid morning routines that include things like prayer, bible reading, chores, and exercise – while we neglect to even think about what our evenings look like.
From the moment that you get home from work, you can begin to add restful practices to your day that rejuvenate you. Ultimately, that is what our evening routines should do. By being intentional about our evenings, we are developing something life-giving. If we want to accomplish much in our lives, we need to have time in our day that fills us back up.
If our mornings are the preparation time where we get ready to launch into the day ahead, our evenings are the time to turn inward, to retreat.
This means that we need to (1) create a home that is a safe haven to retreat to and (2) develop solid routines that help us unplug, unwind, and slow down.
Our mornings are often the time that we have to work on our personal goals. We have our quiet time and exercise. We shower and get ready for the day. It’s a time for ourselves. Our evenings however are often the time that we have to connect, with our family, friends, and spouse.
This means that we should focus on cultivating time for connection in our evening routines. We often can teach our families what we value using this key time, especially if your kids attend public school and you work outside the home. This is the key time to connect with your family.
What do your evenings look like?
Our evenings are probably the most variable part of our days. In the evenings, we cook, clean, help with homework, do our work, connect with friends and family, go to church, visit friends, hang out at restaurants, watch sports, and lounge around our house. (We often knock out this whole list in one week.)
Unlike our mornings, our evenings operate more on a weekly schedule rather than a consistent daily routine. Sunday evenings may be prep day, Wednesday’s church night, and Friday’s movie night. In the tumult of our weekly schedule, is there a point in establishing a routine?
The answer is a resounding yes!
Keeping this in mind, it’s helpful to think of our evening routines in two parts: (1) Our weekly routine and (2) our daily routine.
- When we start to create our routines, we always ask ourselves the same question: What do our evenings currently look like? I would write out the regular commitments that we have on a weekly calendar, keeping monthly events in mind.
- Then, mark the open time that you have on your schedule. When are you normally home? This is the time that you have to work with to create your daily and weekly routine.
Now, we’ll turn to the two different parts of our evening routine and look at the components of each.
The Family Who Was Never Home
We live in a time characterized by rushing. The average student spends 5 hours a week on extracurricular activities. When it comes to sports, over 50% of kids play a sport between the ages of ten and seventeen, with the average amount of time being spent at practice and games being between 15-20 hours a week in season. (Experts are trying to limit time being spent on sports to a children’s age, aka 10-year-olds should only spend 10 hours a week on sports.)
For the average public school student, free time only comes in the evenings and equals roughly 20-25 hours during the week (not including weekends). This is the time that kids have to play games, do homework, eat, and do everything else. With the addition of extracurriculars, this time is in short supply.
We often act as the chauffeurs for our kids as we go from one thing to the next, and our time is even more limited than theirs is if we don’t get home from work until close to 6:00 pm.
We have a few precious hours with our family. If you have ever worked different shifts from your spouse, you know what it feels like to be “ships passing in the night.” Constantly rushing from one thing to the next without time for connection is a recipe for feeling drained and disconnected.
How can we redeem our time?
Well, one option is to create a more flexible work schedule for yourself to steal back some hours for your family. Another option is to choose to homeschool, giving your children the gift of ample time throughout the day. But, both of these options require a significant lifestyle change.
To make an immediate impact on the pace of your days, you can set up a schedule that includes margin in your evenings. Your evenings become that precious time for connection. Every activity that you or your family does needs to be held up against your values. Does this thing match what I want to be teaching my family?
Setting boundaries also means placing limits on your schedule. We have lots of good opportunities available for us now, but too much of a good thing can become a terrible thing. I remember one girl I went to high school with who was on the basketball team, took several AP and honors classes, tutored, volunteered at her church, and did lots of other things. At one point, she told me that she looked forward to school just so she could get a break for a while – as she shuffled off with her 30 lb backpack to go take an exam.
As parents, we are responsible for curating the time of our children. We want to cultivate good skills and habits, and we also want to help them pursue what will be the most impactful things in their lives.
Take some time to write out your non-negotiables. Here are some questions to get you thinking:
- How do you feel about family mealtimes? How can you try to get to the dinner table (and turn off your screens) for several meals throughout the week?
- What extracurricular activities are worthwhile? Sports, music, clubs? Do you place limits on the amount different activities your kids are involved in? What about the days that these events take place? (Or the cost? Travel ball is expensive!)
- What are your boundaries with screens at home? Do your kids have time limits or a specific block of time devoted to screens?
- What church activities happen throughout the week? Which do you feel are important to attend?
- How often do you get together with your friends and family throughout the week? What about your kids? How often do they see their friends? Do you need to set boundaries… or cultivate more connections?
- What time are you devoting to your spouse? Do you have a weekly date night? What about a daily time to talk?
Creating a Life-giving Weekly Schedule for Your Evenings
Justin Whitmel Earley recommended several weekly routines that became spiritual discipling tools for him and his family. These routines could be adapted to your current situation. Ultimately, they help us to connect with God and others.
- One Sabbath day a week
- One weekly movie (or board game) night
- One date night with your spouse
- One weekly conversation with a friend
- One gets together with family or a larger friend group
These all help to build connections between you and your spouse, your family, and your larger community.
Importantly, you should look at how your current schedule can incorporate some of these activities that are life-giving and promote connection. If your days are filled sitting on the bleachers at practice, how can you dial back that time so that your schedule better matches your values?
Make your evening routine a haven and retreat
Being honest with yourself about your weekly evening schedule will help create space to build a better evening routine. Our evenings will include various activities – and that’s a good thing! We don’t want our lives to be full of monotony. At the same time, we also want to develop good habits that help us to accomplish our goals.
We can do this by:
Establishing some parameters around our schedule: When do we want to be home from work or school? When should our dinner be ready and at the table? By what time should we be in bed each night?
Then, we develop routines for the different components of our evenings. Generally, our evenings are made up of three things:
- Dinnertime
- Evening Occupations
- Bedtime Routines
Dinnertime for the most part should look pretty similar each evening. I recognize that this isn’t the case for most families today. But, there are so many positive benefits to sitting at the dinner table each night. It creates better connections between our kids which leads to higher life outcomes for them. It provides a time for family discipleship through devotions and bible reading. It’s cheaper – because we are avoiding eating out. And, cooking at home makes it also healthier than fast food.
Normally, dinnertime will involve a time for cooking, eating, and then cleaning up. You can add in some other household chores to this time, like a 15-minute tidy or a quick vacuuming of the living room floor. Meal planning and prepping can help to make regular dinnertime at the kitchen table attainable for busy families (or for moms with a lot of littles at home)!
Your ‘evening occupations’ will generally be the most flexible and varied one of the routines. I don’t know what commitments you have and what your hobbies and interests are. This is the time to foster connection, hang out at the park, or sit by the fire and read a book. I just encourage you to make this time count. We can easily waste hours scrolling or binge-watching Netflix. That doesn’t lead to a life-giving evening routine. Try to unplug – both from work and from mindless entertainment. Do something that fills you up.
Finally, you need to create a solid bedtime routine. This is something that mirrors your morning routine in that it is individual and really focused on helping you achieve your personal goals. Your bedtime routine should be about unplugging and unwinding. A solid bedtime routine will help you to get better sleep and feel ready to tackle the next day.
Marguerite Ward and Erin McDowell of Business Insider found 15 things that highly successful people do each evening. These include:
- Unplug completely for at least 30 minutes, aka ‘putting their phone to bed’
- Do some kind of gentle evening exercise, like an evening walk
- Decompress, including refusing to focus on work, brain dumping (and then moving on from) a to-do list, reflecting on good moments from the day, meditating, etc.
- Spending time with your family, especially your spouse.
- Reading
- Have a hygiene ritual, including skin care, showering, and taking care of yourself.
Keeping this list in mind, how can you make space for things that help you to unplug and unwind? A good bedtime routine includes time for decompression, hygiene, and relaxation.
Importantly, you want to establish an actual bedtime. If you wait till you feel tired, you often end up looking at screens (which just keeps you up longer) and snacking (which leads to worse sleep). Set a time to begin your bedtime routine. Then, if you are still not tired, read in bed until you fall asleep. Once you get into a routine, that will happen faster than you think!
Create Your Evening Routine
Evening Routines can help us to wrap up our current day, connect with our family and friends, and have a better night’s sleep. Over weeks and months, a solid evening routine can be life-changing. Instead of feeling harried, racing from one thing to the next, an evening routine can help you to feel calm, connected, and centered.
Evening Routines are about curation and boundaries. We have to decide what our values are and then we build routines that reflect those values. In choosing how we spend our time, we are cultivating those values in our lives. This leads to the cultivation of those values in our children as well.
What does your evening routine look like? Comment below!
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Until next time, keep creating a life you love and cultivating your heart for God.
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