13. Morning Startup and Evening Shutdown for Moms
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[00:00:00] Hey friends. Welcome back to the household CEO podcast. It's Calista Anderson here, and I first of all just wanna apologize in advance because I am a little bit under the weather, so I might sound congested. And secondly, I'm recording this at home right now in my office, but. I'm gonna have to get up and go to my son's hockey practice soon, and so I may be recording the rest of the episode in the car.
So if you hear a little audio difference, that is the reason.
So a little audio disclaimer there
If you're new here, I'm Calista Anderson. I am a wife, a mom of three, a licensed financial professional. My background is in nursing. I was an ICU nurse, and I am someone who cares deeply about helping [00:01:00] families run their homes smoothly with as little chaos is humanly possible. So we are just coming off the Family Method series,
~which was very financial,~
~which was very heavy in the financial foundation, which was very much heavy in the financial aspects of running a home.~
Which was very finance heavy.
I wanna switch gears and go back to the daily running of things, especially for us moms. So today we're gonna talk about that, something that might feel simple ~but is actually foundational. ~But is actually foundational, and that is morning startup and evening shutdown routines for moms. Because here's the truth, if your mornings feel rushed before your feet even hit the floor, .
If your evenings end in collapse instead of closure, you are probably missing these couple things.
Maybe there aren't defined [00:02:00] transitions ~and your day need bookends ~and your day needs bookends.
You don't need a perfect day. ~You just need a clear stop and a clear. ~You need a clear start and a clear stop.
~So let's talk about it.~
So let's get into it and talk about it.
All right, routines. Why routines matter so much.
I forgot to mention when I gave my little list of my background is that I had a podcast, which is still available, called The New Mom Boss, which helped pregnant and postpartum moms get through the season of pregnancy and that fourth trimester of getting into the swing of things of motherhood. And I talked a lot about routines for babies.
Which I believe strongly helps babies feel more secure and calm when they know the morning [00:03:00] routine and they know the evening routine. You know, bath time, the lullaby songs, things you do every night that just signal to the body that it's time to wind down. We moms need the same thing. Maybe you already have these routines in place, or maybe you have a routine that you're not aware of and haven't seen a pattern of.
But taking a look at what you do before you start your day and how you end the day in your evening time can really affect everything that goes on in between.
.
~I like to look at. ~I like to look at it sometimes like a sandwich. Everything in the middle of a sandwich needs to be held by the top and the bottom piece. ~So~
~if those two pieces~
~aren't this, . ~If those two pieces aren't firm enough to grab your sandwich, the middle just falls apart.
And I think you would agree that the middle of the day, which is [00:04:00] sandwiched. Often lies in the hands of US moms who run the household.
So let's start with the morning. The first 20 to 30 minutes after you wake up are super powerful. That's when your brain is highly suggestible. Your nervous system is calibrating. Your stress response hasn't fully ramped up yet.
If the first thing you do is grab your phone, check your email, scroll Instagram, or respond to someone else's urgency, ~you've already, you've already surrendered part of your day, ~you've already surrendered, leading part of your day.
If you don't lead your morning, your morning will lead you. And as moms, especially moms, running businesses, working jobs, moms with unpredictable hours, managing sports schedules and school events, et cetera, we need intentionality more than we need motivation.
There isn't [00:05:00] one right morning routine. Everyone's different ~and, ~and approaches it differently, but I wanna share three styles and then I'll share what works for me.
So one way to start a morning routine is the energy first, and this style comes more from a Tony Robbins type of philosophy. His philosophy is simple state creates performance. So he teaches movement, breath work, gratitude, priming, visualization. He changes his physiology first, because when you change your body, you change your mindset.
Now listen, most of us aren't doing cold plunges at 5:00 AM with three kids in the house, but the principle applies . Maybe five minutes of stretching, ~some intentional breath work, ~some intentional breath work, speaking gratitude out loud or writing them [00:06:00] down. ~Things that sh ~things that can shift your state before the house needs you.
The second style of morning routine .
And I would say this is more like a Robin Sharma type of getting your day started. This emphasizes discipline over motivation. So no phone. First thing, you have clear top three priorities,
and the goal is protecting the first part of the day. Robin Sharma teaches the 20 20 20 method, which is move, reflect, and grow and each for 20 minutes. And again, when you are a busy mom, you may not have a whole hour ~to start ~to start your day off with. So any variation in any amount of minutes dedicated to each of these would be a very great start.
Maybe for you, that's 10 quiet minutes, riding [00:07:00] your top three. Looking at your calendar before anything begins, when you know what you have in the day ahead of you, it reduces anxiety, E.
And then the third style I would call is more values and alignment.
And approaching your morning routine like this emphasizes more on alignment and intentional living. Lots of journaling, prayer, writing, your daily goals.
Where the focus isn't intensity and how much you can get done, ~but more ~but more about alignment.
You can design your day around what matters in this season.
And this town matters so much when you're raising children. Now all three styles are different, and they do have some overlap, but they all share these three things. They have an intentional start. No immediate digital chaos and clear [00:08:00] priorities.
Now, I would say my morning startup is a blend of these three.
I have a different schedule almost every day, but the one common thing is I start my mornings up pretty similarly.
My mornings actually start the evening before, but I'll talk more about that when I get into the evening shutdown. So when I first wake up, I do reach for my phone, but it's not for scrolling. It's usually to check the time and I don't unlock it.
I do start off my day with, Gratitude.
And some mind body breath work.
Then I drink water, which is very important when we've been sleeping for eight hours ~and we're breathing~
and we're breathing all night long, which is a good thing. It means we're alive, but our mouth is often dry. And we just need to replace all that moisture, all the water that we've exhaled [00:09:00] out.
~So a lot of water in the morning is really important, ~so a lot of water first thing in the morning.
Then I usually get the kids up or just wake them up. They're old enough that they can kind of get their mornings started without me, and then I get ready for the day,
~actually before I start getting ready for the day. And before I, you know, fully start, well, ~before I fully start getting ready, you know, getting myself together and all that, I do ~take a look. I ~take a look at what's ahead for the day. Just a quick glance, because as you know, in the morning sometimes we're still a little bit half asleep.
And ~we forget what the day has. ~We forget what the day has in store for us. So just a quick check to kind of calibrate my speed.
Then I get ready, then I get the kids ready.
~The key here is to, ~the key here is waking up before the house wakes up and I'm not saying you have to wake up two hours or an hour and a half before the house. It's whatever you can do, just having that moment to yourself, self getting aligned
and then taking a [00:10:00] peek at what the calendar has. For me, it is really helpful as the first bookend for the day.
I also review my top three priorities for the day, whether that's for business or home.
I get asked a lot how I do so much and juggle so much, I actually just got asked this yesterday
~with a group of coworkers. ~With a group of colleagues,
and when I sit back and actually think about it, I would say this is one of the tools of getting a lot of things done is having three priorities, three big priorities for the week, ~and then breaking ~and then breaking those down into three priorities for the day.
So as we continue in the morning, a lot of the morning start for the rest of the home usually has been started from the evening before. That makes mornings run so much more smoothly when you've done [00:11:00] half the work the day before. ~And those things are, ~and those things for us , are things like having all the bags ready, whether it's backpacks, sports bags, other kinds of bags.
'cause we always have bags with other things for whatever activity we're doing right.
Outfits for the day ready. So not everything is being decided at seven 10 in the morning.
~So in short, I would say that, oh.~
So in short, I would say the morning startup is super important and super effective. If you can have that time for yourself
to get primed for the day, ~feeding yourself the right.~
Feeding yourself with positivity, with prayer and gratitude, and also nourishment.
But this second piece to the startup is that you're not starting from scratch. You're ready just to start up.
Then the day happens. Everyone has something to do. We're [00:12:00] all doing all the things. That's the middle part of the sandwich.
And then the other end of it all is when everything is done, we have our evening shutdown.
And the evening shutdown matters,
which most people skip. , I would say most people might look at the evening shutdown as the time where it's just time for bed.
Now, if you're looking at your evenings that way where you just wanna like zone out and get ready for bed, I get that and that can be included as part of the shutdown, but. Like I mentioned, mornings are built the night before, so
~if you never close the day, you can carry~
closing. Your date should include part of tomorrow.
~And once you do that, ~and once you've done that, ~that's when I say it's, ~that's the time to close off the tabs in your brain.
So here's a little shutdown framework.
It works for me most of the time, ~and it works for the house my family. ~And it works for our [00:13:00] household. So number one, physically reset, which usually takes about 10 to 15 minutes. It's not a deep cleaning of the home, but it's definitely putting things away and resetting it for the next day. I do not like to wake up to a, a big mess.
I can tolerate a little bit, but when I wake up and there's a big mess in the house, it's very distracting and, and very discombobulating. So just a little physical home reset, 10 to 15 minutes. Reduces your friction for tomorrow's morning.
The sink is empty. Start the dishwasher, backpacks, sports bags, other bags ready to go.
You can call it, uh, a physical reset like I just said, or tomorrow's preset.
Next. After that part is done, take five minutes ~for tomorrow's preview. ~For tomorrow's preview. I check the [00:14:00] calendar. I visualize what the day's gonna look like and how, you know, transitioning between activities is gonna look like and do I have enough buffer time between things? ~Usually this is. ~Usually the timing of this all is done at the beginning of the week, but looking at it at a day's glance is what I do.
Also as part of the evening shutdown,
I also take a look at my to-do list if I have, whether it's a mental or an actual to-do list, and see if there are any morning decisions I can make before I go to bed.
Now after that's all done
~then,~
then we can officially shut down the evening.
This is the shower time, skincare routine time prayer, stretching.
My brain is ready to watch a show with my husband, and it really cues my brain to tell the brain
the day is over.
[00:15:00] Now, let me say this clearly, these are frameworks, not rules. Some nights you get home late from games. Some mornings someone's sick. Some weeks your business is super busy and your hours shift,
but routines shrink, they shouldn't disappear.
So a busy night or a busy season version could be a five minute reset, a two minute calendar glance,
and maybe you do just collapse into bed these days and evenings happen,
but it should not be the regular operation, not for a household, CEO.
Now, I hope that was helpful and I wanna give you a little prompt. I want you to take a look at what you are already doing. 'cause I'm sure you're doing a startup and shut down. But ask yourself, how can it be more of a startup where you give yourself the best energy?
And then think of your [00:16:00] evening shutdown down. How much of tomorrow's work are you doing or can you do as part of shutting down so you're setting yourself up for a smooth day the next day?
Also, what can you remove that might be causing you to slow down or give you friction on your day to day? A.
If you are like me, you may have read a bunch of these self-development books, listen to podcasts, and listen to a lot of these world renowned leaders talk about similar things, their startup and shutdowns. A lot of it is very inspiring and aspiring, I would say. But for us busy moms, a lot of it is not that attainable because our time is more restricted.
We don't have 90 minutes for a miracle morning. Most of the time ice baths are just not as accessible on a day-to-day for most of us moms. ~But we, ~[00:17:00] but what we can do is ~find repeatable, ~find repeatable rhythms and routines that are guardrails. We can flex them, scale them, and guide us back whenever we need it.
It gives you peace, and peace fluctuates,
I look at peace as a practice 'cause we're always practicing and it's never attained.
All right, my household CEOs. I hope this episode has helped you and will get you to look more closely at how you start and end your days.
~And as always, I want to ask for your, and as always, I. Always like to ask for this favor, ~and as always as a favor, if you haven't already, please subscribe to the podcast ~and leave a rating and, ~and leave a rating or review ~as that will really help our community, ~as that will really help the podcast get out to more families and help more households run smoothly.
~Until next time, friend. Take care. ~Until next time, friend. Take care. [00:18:00]
