How can you plan your evenings to be your best and most productive the next morning? You might need an amazing evening routine to help you with this!
An evening routine should be about getting ready for the next day and unwinding from the day that has passed. You should be able to do both to be the most productive the next day.
Sure, some nights you might not have much of an evening if you have been working late or had to attend an event after work, then you could do a tiny version to get the most important stuff done.
Having an evening routine will give your brain some rest when you are familiar with it, and save you tons of time and energy because you don’t have to choose what to do all the time.
So let’s find out which things you can include in your evening routine to improve yourself and your life.
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Amazing Evening Routine to be More Productive The Next Day
1. Preparation for the next day
Preparing yourself for the next day is essential for your evening routine for more productivity. I think good preparation will help you with almost everything in life. Preparing yourself is half of the work and will speed up getting things done for sure!
When you prepare as much as you can for the next day, you will need less time in the morning to get ready and can sleep longer, which helps massively boost your productivity.
Planning for tomorrow
You can plan for tomorrow right before ending your workday (if you do this during your workday, you will have more time for yourself during the evening!). Choose between a digital planner and a paper planner or just get both if you can’t choose. This Clever Fox Planner will last up to 12 months and has tons of goal-setting pages as well, which will help with getting motivation and boosting your productivity as well.
Having a paper and a digital planner probably won’t improve your productivity as you will have to fill out the same things twice, but I love having a paper planner so much that I just can’t get rid of it!
If it is possible, you could do the groundwork for the entire week on Friday night, so that you only have to make a few adjustments during the weeknights. When you start your day tomorrow, you will have a list of everything that needs to be done and can start right away, which saves you time and mental energy.
Choosing an outfit for the next day
Something that needs to get done in the evening to save some time and maybe even a little stress during your busy mornings is choosing an outfit for the next day. Many women tend to take a long time choosing which outfit to wear because they want to look their very best. It’s a good thing that you want to look good, but it shouldn’t take that long.
Here’s a little trick to make choosing an outfit for work so much easier and quicker. When you go shopping for clothes, buy basic clothes for the biggest part of your closet, clothes that you can combine with almost any other piece of clothing. When you have a strong base of neutral clothes, you can add a few stand-out items. But don’t get too many special clothes that are hard to combine with other pieces because this will only give you a headache when you are trying to make a cute outfit.
You can also divide your closet and organize it to have a work section and an evening or weekend section. This will make the process of choosing a work outfit a lot easier. Lay it out so you only have to put it on in the morning without thinking about it.
Preparing breakfast and lunch
You can prepare your breakfast and lunch during your evening routine if you like. I like to do this because I am not a morning person and like to get as much done for the next day in the evening so I don’t have to get up even earlier than it needs to be.
Not every breakfast and lunch can be prepared the evening before, but if you like to eat things that you can prepare, why not do it in the evening?
You can make some overnight oatmeal, and take leftovers from dinner to work for lunch the next day for example.
10 min declutter session
If you are a very neat person and you always clean up your mess right after you make it, this tip doesn’t apply to you. Although you might live with other people who make a mess that you don’t want to clean up, so share this tip with them to keep the house nice and tidy.
Creating a habit of doing a little decluttering session before you go to bed will boost your energy when waking up in a neat and organized house. Looking at a cluttered room will take away some of your energy and will clutter your mind as well.
2. Relaxing and winding down
Another important part of your evening routine should be about relaxing and winding down from your day. You need to take some time for yourself, some me-time if you will to recharge your battery and just enjoy yourself.
You can switch up your routine from day to day because most people won’t have time to do everything they would like to do in a short evening. There are some things you might have to do every evening, like eating dinner and washing yourself, those are important acts of self-care.
There are other things that you can switch up, like one night you might want to have a walk around the block, while the other you prefer to practice your hobby etc. You are the designer of your life!
Having dinner
Having dinner is a basic human need. You can make this as quick or extensive as you want.
If you like cooking, you can cook every evening and spend a good amount of time on it. You know that the food is fresh and the most healthy that it can be. You can switch turns with your partner if you have one or cook together as a fun activity as a couple.
If you like cooking, but don’t want to be spending all your weekday evening on it, try having a meal prep session on the weekend so that you can still cook some days but can also reheat some of your pre-cooked meals on busy days.
And for the people who hate to cook, there are plenty of microwavable meals available in supermarkets nowadays. This isn’t always the healthiest option, but if you choose them right, they will provide you with a delicious and still partly nutritious meal. The best part is that you have dinner in like 4 minutes.
Taking a bath or hot shower
Washing yourself every day can feel like a chore (which it also is in a way), but you can make this a pleasant evening routine activity!
A lot of people choose to shower in the morning, to wake up and get fresh and fruity for the day. But as an evening person, I prefer to do this at night. You have more time to enjoy this in the evening and it feels less like a chore if you like doing it.
A bath works so relaxing and you can feel your stress melting away when you are lying and soaking in the hot water. Add some scented bath salts, scented candles, or maybe a fun bath bomb sometimes to make it extra special.
Having a hot shower will also feel good and relaxing if you want to spend less time washing yourself.
Gentle stretching
When you are sitting all day, or doing manual labor, either or, you will benefit from a stretching routine. No, let me correct this, EVERYONE will benefit from a little stretching in their evening routine!
Your muscles cramp up during the day because of repetitive movements and sitting in the same poses for too long. So you need to stretch it out to get all flexible and relaxed again (even if you don’t think that you are flexible to begin with).
Check out Yoga With Adriene for some awesome instructive videos and get yourself a good yoga mat to do your stretching on. Your yoga mat needs will vary from the type of yoga you do, your body and its needs, and how much money you can spend on it.
Watching your favorite show or reading a book
Your evening routine should have some truly fun activities as well, like watching your favorite show or reading a good book, depending on your personal preference.
You can look forward to your evening during your workday when you know you get to watch a new episode of your favorite show or read a chapter from your favorite book, which is great! This is self-care and me-time at its finest.
I’m not saying to only do this, but it can be a fun and exciting part of your evening routine and you should enjoy it without feeling guilty, you deserve to have a good time!
Practice your hobby
Another great option to add to your evening routine is to practice your hobby. Your hobby can be anything you can think of that you enjoy doing and lose track of time because you get into a flow state.
You can have an active hobby, like cycling, swimming, dancing or running. Try to not do these things right before bedtime because you will be all hyped up and can’t fall asleep easily right after exercising.
Or maybe you like doing more creative hobbies like knitting, drawing, cooking, taking photos, playing music, writing, etc. There are so many fun activities that you can have as a hobby and that give you the energy to conquer the next day.
Having an evening walk around the block
An evening walk is a wonderful activity to add to your evening routine. Most people sit all day at their jobs and move way too less.
Taking a stroll around the block will get your blood flowing and has plenty of health benefits to compensate for the sedentary lifestyle that we all live a little.
It’s also great to clear your head and breathe in some fresh air (if you don’t walk next to a busy street filled with cars that is). Walking could also be added to your morning routine if you are more of a morning person.
It would be even better to have a walk in a green environment like a park or forest to unwind and relax even more. You can do this alone, bring your dog along, or walk and catch up with a friend or family member.
Calling or talking with a loved one
We all want to feel connected to other people and as much as introverts love their alone time, building strong connections also brings them a lot of joy. Introverts don’t feel the need to get together with lots of other people every evening, but they often do like to connect in some kind of way.
You can call your parents or dearest friends to have a little chat on the phone or video call, or maybe you prefer texting them one night when your social battery is depleted. Connecting with a loved one is a great thing to add to your evening routine.
If you feel more sociable, you can get together with friends to have a drink or have dinner together. You can also hang out with some people (people you are really close with most often) without having to talk much, but their company can mean a lot.
Dental routine and skincare
This is another must-do on the list of evening routine activities. You must take care of your teeth and skin to keep them healthy.
Having no time to brush your teeth doesn’t add up for me, I’ve heard this many times in the dental practice, but the basics take only two minutes. Check out my blog posts about interdental cleaning and healthy teeth tips if you want to learn more about keeping your teeth hopefully for the rest of your life!
Taking care of your skin can be done quickly as well. Some have very elaborate skincare routines, which is great if they work for you but it doesn’t have to take much time. Wash your face before going to bed and apply some night cream, that can be enough depending on your skin’s needs.
Visit a dermatologist if you want to know what your skin needs every day.
Gratitude practice
It’s a good idea to add some gratitude practice at the end of your evening routine. You can do this by writing down a few things you are grateful for that happened the past day in a gratitude journal, or saying them out loud before right before you go to sleep.
You can also write things down and read them out loud to double the effect. When you write all the things down that you were grateful for before, you can take a look into that journal if you are feeling down and it will be an instant mood booster, showing you that you have a life to be thankful for.
If you need some inspiration, I’ve made a gratitude inspiration list that you can take a look at to get inspired.
Conclusion – How Does an Evening Routine Make You Productive?
Maybe you are reading this blog post thinking, how on earth will these things or an evening routine contribute to my productivity the next day? Well, let me tell you how.
For starters, the preparation for the next day part will save you tons of time the following day. You can start working earlier because you don’t have to do things in the morning and know exactly what you need to do. This will reduce the amount of decisions you have to make during the day and free some mental energy to use on doing mentally challenging tasks.
Secondly, the unwinding and relaxing part of the evening routine will help your body to calm down and recharge the energy that it has lost during the day. You can recharge energy on different levels, resting and sleeping is only one way, you need other ways as well, like having fun, enjoying yourself, and connecting with others or by listening to the psychical needs of your body by feeding it, washing it and stretching it out or exercising.
You will be more productive when you take good care of yourself, knowing this is very important. Self-care isn’t only a nice thing to do, it is also a necessity.
I wish you a productive day tomorrow and an enjoyable evening routine!