Do you have a morning routine?

This post is part of a 30 in 30 blog experiment, where I committed to writing 30 posts in 30 days with minimal planning between June 20, 2016 and July 20, 2016. 

I took a drive this morning along my favorite road. Yes. I have a favorite road. It's lined with farms and stables, it's twisty, hilly, full of trees and wide open fields. There's something about a simple white fence lined with trees that I just love. I wanted to park myself under one of these trees and watch the clouds float by. It was a perfect way to end my morning errands.

I'm working on finding a new morning routine. I know a lot of famous and successful folks swear by their a.m. routine. My problem is I'm not a morning person. Never have been.

As I typed those words, I wonder if all these labels I apply to myself do more harm than good. Am I really a morning person or just someone who has developed habits that equate to not being very alert in the morning? Change is hard, but I got up this morning and worked out intentionally for the first time in a VERY long time. Once I pressed play on the DVD player the rest wasn't as bad as I'd anticipated. And the endorphin rush afterward felt AMAZING. I wasn't sleepy this afternoon, either.

My normal routine is to get up, take care of my dogs, stumble into the shower, throw on some clothes, grab McDonalds on the way to work and hope no one at the office talks to me for an hour -- at least. But at the end of the day, I have trouble finding time for the things that are important to me and handling the family stuff that needs to get done. It's time for a change.

When it comes to morning routines, I have a long list of things I want to add to my routine, but honestly, once I wrote down this list, I can see why I've had a difficulty breaking my resistance to trying it. There's, like, 3 hours of work on this list. I'd have to get up and 5 a.m! It's too much to start all at once.

1) meditation
2) intentional exercise (strength training, etc)
3) walk the dogs
4) write
5) morning pages

This week I'm sticking to physical activity. Either walking the dogs or intentional exercise (strength training, yoga, etc). I will build on my activities from there. There is something I have to add to my evening routine to make all this possible: go to bed earlier. I'll report back on my progress next week.

Also, I've been blogging for 7 days! only 23 to go. LOL.

I'd love to hear about your morning routine. Any pointers?

Edited: July 31, 2016