Do morning routines make sense?

Successful people-speak involves having a morning routine.

A question towards women who have it all always includes some variant of what is your routine?

Glorious morning routines are part of a successful person's olympics. Tends to be some beautiful start to the day which energizes the self.  Like exercise, meditation, planning for the day with a hot cup of coffee that you are supposed to mindfully enjoy.

But what if you have been up most of the night because of your child? What if you never wake up to quiet, but wake up to chaos?

This morning routine concept can really exclude parents. Children can wake up insanely early.

With children, time management occurs at the fringes of the day

In order to be productive, get some me time, or be healthy, parents end up waking up before their kids and working at night after they are asleep.

That is why any time management book that excludes this pain point is absolutely irrelevant in a working woman's life. The other thing to remember is that you need to literally creep around in the morning in order to get those things you prize done.

Sometimes even the fringes don't work.

I remember that in a really low point I wanted to wake up early just to clean the house a bit (really stupid use of morning hours). I did have a reason, but now in hindsight, I still think it was stupid. I took a mistep. A creaky floorboard. My infant woke up immediately.

I ended up carrying him in one of my several carriers. I thought I would do some very careful cleaning with the carrier (this is cringeworthy just reflecting back on it). I ended up taking twice and maybe even three times as long to finish the most basic tasks, because I was constrained by the baby and worried about his safety if I were to bend over too far.

If I would have just slept, it would have been more productive.

I wouldn't have deprived myself of a physical necessity and I could have easily done the cleaning at another time that was more optimized.

So is it essential to have a morning routine? It makes total sense in terms of both feeding and sleeping if you have a newborn.  

Routines are great in theory. The structure of it makes you feel as if you are accomplishing something no matter what it is.

Lauren Valdez talks about pursuing a morning ritual rather than a routine. When you think of something as a ritual instead of a routine, there is a lot more flexibility to it. There is even a spiritual component.

I no longer believe in the morning routine being absolutely necessary - but since my chronotype is being a morning person, I gave it an attempt.