5 Ways to Simplify Your Nighttime Routine

The New Year is here, and naturally we tend to start thinking about better habits and intentions that we would like to have for the year.  One great and easy thing to tweak or create is a nighttime routine that will prepare you for a good night of rest as well as set your mornings up for success. Here are a few ways to simplify your nighttime routine. 

1/ Keep frequently used items together.

This is a peace-of-mind thing that will help to make your morning smoother. It can also keep your mind settled at night so you won’t stress thinking that you forgot something in the morning. Keeping all of your items that you need in the morning corralled together is a great way to start your nighttime routine. Keys, laptop bags, lunch bags, sunglasses, water bottles, etc. Whatever you need to get going in the morning, prep it at night. 

2/ Stick to a sleep schedule.

This is a difficult one for me when it comes to a nighttime routine, so I will definitely be working on this! I do know that your body appreciates a consistent sleep schedule and a solid night of sleep. It can be very difficult to stick to a sleep schedule depending on your lifestyle, but ultimately your body will thank you. I don’t know the best amount of sleep time for adults because I feel it’s different for everyone, but I know 4 hours isn’t going to cut it. Whatever works for you, stick to that schedule, but be realistic about the hours you need to sleep. 

3/ Use the DND setting on your phone.

If you tend to get frequent calls and notifications on your phone, it would be helpful to stick to a DND schedule so you aren’t disturbed while sleeping. You can always set certain callers as exceptions so in emergency situations they can still reach you. Outside of your emergency contacts, you will not hear notifications and this will help you settle. I recommend setting your DND for the same time you start your wind down ritual. 

4/ Create your own wind down ritual.

Speaking of wind down rituals, this is a great way to form better self-care habits for yourself by doing something relaxing to wind down. This could be taking melatonin gummies as a natural relaxation/sleep aid, drinking chamomile tea, burning lavender incense or candles, taking CBD to help you relax, giving yourself a facial mask, etc. Some people also respond well to meditation to calm their thoughts before bed. Whatever works for you, try incorporating it into your nightly routine. 

5/ Don’t overload yourself.

If you have too much to do in one evening/night preventing you from completing any of the suggestions above, you should reevaluate your nights. I understand the evenings can be hectic and busy non-stop. I get it…but you have to find time to get a breather, and this might be by removing some things from your night. For example, instead of scrolling on social media, try clearing your mind with meditation. Instead of watching tv, read a couple of pages from a book. You may also have certain chores you do at night. If so, consider spreading them out throughout the week to make room for relaxation and your new nighttime routine. Overwhelm and overload leads to exhaustion, and that’s not a healthy way to be.

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What are some of your favorite ways to wind down before bedtime? If you have a nighttime routine that works well, please share in the comments!

Annual Planning Retreat: Why It’s Important and What To Do

The new year is rapidly approaching, so I took the time out to prep and plan a few weekends ago.  Three years ago I began what I now call the ‘Lauren Myers & Co. Annual Planning Retreat’ where I book a hotel room for a few days, hunker down and plan out my content and other initiatives for the upcoming year.  This is the core of my monthly planning sessions as well as my weekly task list.  I would like to share with you why I started this retreat, why it can be helpful for you and how you can approach your annual retreat.

Why to Have an Annual Planning Retreat

1/ Uninterrupted Dedicated Planning
The best reason I can give to have a planning retreat is to have dedicated planning time with no interruptions or distractions.  There are waaaayyyy too many distractions at home, so stepping away for even just one day will do wonders for focusing.  I understand that there are instances where you may be unable to leave your home overnight alone, so even if you are home, try to find a window of time to focus on your annual planning hopefully in a quiet setting.

2/ Refocus for the new year
The best way to enter a new year is with clarity.  You want to enter the year knowing what goals you will be tackling and how you plan to accomplish them.  Dedicating a focused block of time to plan all of this out will also get you pumped for the new year and initiatives ahead.

3/ Re-evaluate existing goals
This is also a great time to review your previous goals for the year and see if they are still aligned with your ultimate goals for your business.  Maybe you had a goal of creating an e-course, but have since decided that you no longer want to take that route.  Dedicating time to re-evaluate what you thought you wanted to do is a great place to start because it will guide the remaining planning session in the right direction.

4/ Set new goals
Once the existing goals have been established, you can then move on to setting new goals that are more aligned with what you want to do and the kind of content you want to create. Businesses move through different stages, and at a certain point new goals will be made not only to align with what you’re passionate about, but also with the changing world and technology.  Just a few years ago, the majority of people had no concept of ChatGPT, and now it is huge!  Many businesses decided to make adjustments to involve AI in their content creation as a result. This is just one example of technology shift and how quickly things can change, so it’s important to also align with the times.

What to do on Your Planning Retreat

What you decide to do on your planning retreat is all up to you and the type of plans you want to create.  You could be planning for your business, household lifestyle/schedule, or 9-5.  Here are a few things that you can focus on for business:

1/ High level creation of content calendar
I plan all of my blog post topics and email marketing topics for the year during my retreat, then schedule each post on my Trello calendar.  I mentioned earlier that this is the core of my monthly planning sessions because I already know what to post about and work on for the month.  This is a huge upfront investment in time that will give you a great ROI in the long run because you won’t be wasting time trying to decide what to post, and instead will be creating your planned content.

2/ Weekly Schedule
I was never a schedule girlie, but now I understand the importance of having some sort of structure to your life.  I’m not a hard core scheduler, but I do like to lay out what needs to be done each day.  I’ve realized that I don’t work well in chaos or in confusion, so I need some kind of structure to stick to.  This is why I had to create a weekly content creation schedule, because without it I wouldn’t post as I should.  My schedule has changed over the years, and I even changed it again during this retreat.  The goal here is to create a schedule that works for your life, not society’s standards.  Maybe you don’t work a traditional 9-5, so evening and night time schedules don’t work for you.  Maybe you work on weekends so time to focus on your content can’t be on weekends.  However your life is set up, you have to make a schedule that works appropriately for you.

3/ Establish/Reestablish Business Pillars
Business pillars are the foundation of content topics that you post about.  It’s good to have no more than four business pillars so you can stay focused on your niche and create dedicated content around it.  You also don’t want to have scattered content and end up with no area of expertise.  If you don’t have content pillars, you can create them during your session, because the content you plan for the year will be built from them. If you already have content pillars, now is a good time to review them to determine if they still resonate with you and your audience or if any of them need to change.

4/ Review wins of the year and build on them
This planning session is a great time to review your wins and shortcomings from the previous year.  Make note of the things you did that worked well for you and your audience, and think of ways to expand on them for the new year to make them even better.

On the other hand, acknowledging your shortcomings and areas in need of improvement is also important.  Review these things so you know what you need to put more focus on to improve it, or to scrap from your business model completely.

5/ Enjoy some self-care
This entire time away doesn’t have to be all work and no play.  It’s important to carve out time for self-care as well which could simply be ordering room service, getting a massage, taking a walk, etc.  Sliding self-care into your retreat will give your brain a good break and reset from all the planning you’ve been doing!

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There are so many more ideas of what you can plan during your Annual Planning Retreat such as recording bulk content to use throughout the year, taking plenty of photos to use throughout the year for social posts, creating social media post descriptions in bulk, working on new products and services, updating your website, updating your branding items, etc. It’s all about being prepared and having things planned out for the year to help further you along in your goals!

Do you have an annual planning session to prepare for the new year?  Let me know what you do in the comments section!