How to Build a Productive Night Routine

Book-ending your day the right way.

I always knew that having a morning routine is important. Over time, I’ve learned that having a night routine is just as important, if not key to having a great morning routine.

This blog post is all about how to build a night routine. You will learn how to build a night routine that will prepare you for a great day.

Whether you consider yourself an early bird or a night owl, having a night routine is game-changing. It doesn’t matter what time you usually go to bed, having a routine will make you feel like you’ve got your life together.

Let’s dive in.

Step 1: List the habits that lead you to sleep later

One of the first things to having a productive night routine is to eliminate the habits that will make you stay up later.

Examples of habits that have made me stay up later than I should include:

• Social Media scrolling
• Random internet scrolling
• Listening to music over and over again

The reason why you either want to limit or eliminate these habits that keep you up is that they will affect your sleep. When your sleep is affected, your morning can get affected as well. When your morning is affected, your productivity can also be affected.

So, think of any habits that you have noticed keep you up at night. They also don’t necessarily have to be electronic-related. Other habits I’ve struggled with at night are overthinking and stressing out in general. In the next step, we will go over some replacement habits that you can try to do instead.

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RELATED: Digital Habits For Better Productivity

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Step 2: Generate a list of potential replacement habits

Now, we list habits that we can replace and do in our night routine instead, and not ruin it.

Examples of habits that I’ve done include:

• Reading a fiction book
• Having my favorite tea (non-caffeine of course)
• Preparing everything I need for the next day

You see, the reason why habits can be hard to eliminate is because you have nothing to do instead. For example, it’ll be hard to eliminate social media as a habit if you’re not replacing it with anything.

For instance, a reason why social media is addicting is because it can be entertaining or it gives you a dopamine hit. But, when you eliminate it, your brain will still crave that dopamine hit or something to be entertained with. That’s why it’s important to have a replacement habit that still gives that same entertainment and dopamine hit.

Your formula is to identify the following:

• The habit in question – e.g. social media
• What reward/feeling you get after doing this habit – e.g. with social media, you get the feelings of entertainment.
• What habit can you replace it with that still gives that same feeling – e.g. reading a fiction book also gives you the feeling of entertainment.

Step 3: List your non–negotiable night habits

These are habits that you MUST do to ensure that your day goes well tomorrow.

For example, some of my non-negotiable habits include:

• Cleaning up my space (so I can wake up to a clean space)
• Preparing everything I need for the next day, from my outfit to items
• Reviewing my to-do list & schedule and making changes as required

Personally, having a clean space and everything I need ready to go for the next day, helps me be more productive. I don’t dread my dirty spaces and I save time from having to find an outfit and all the other things I need before I head out the door.

Think about habits that help you make the next day, even just a little bit easier. Think of habits that you can do the night before, that your future self will thank you for.

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RELATED: Daily Non-Negotiable Habits To Implement

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Step 4: Create the order

Now, it’s time to put it all together. You can order the steps, or you simply just pick and choose what works for you depending on the night, and stick with your non-negotiables.

For me, I have a set order for when I do my non-negotiable night habits. However, I’m more flexible with my other habits.

For instance, no matter how tired I am from a long day, I will do my non-negotiable night habits of preparing everything for the next day and cleaning my spaces.

However, on other days, I will do my other night habits like journalling and face masks.

Nonetheless, you want your non-negotiable habits to be ingrained in your brain so that you can do them without thinking of it.

But there will be days when you’re super tired and out of it that you feel like doing the routine a different way and that’s okay.

Take a SMALL STEP

The blog post in itself gave you the steps you needed to build your productive night routine. :))

To Wrap Up

Hopefully, these steps of listing the “keeping you up” habits, their replacement habits, and your non-negotiable night habits can help you have a productive night routine. When you have a productive night routine, you also start your morning off on a great note.

If you want some resources to help you be more productive, I’ve got a free mini e-book all about it called Small Steps to Productivity which you can check out here.

In the meantime, I hope you’ll be able to take even the smallest steps to make your night routine a little better.

-Lauren 🙂

P.S I suggest you read these blog posts of the other routines:

• Essential Routines to Personal Growth
• How to Build a Productive Morning Routine
• Work Routine Mistakes

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