6 Healthy Habits You Can Start Doing Today

First off, congratulations to us for passing the 1-week mark of staying home! Fortunately (or unfortunately), we have 3 more weeks to go. Though this is a challenging time for all of us, we have a choice whether to just sit at home and do nothing or, we can turn it around by making use of all the free time we have on our hands and doing something productive.

I’m sure we all choose the latter — so here are some tips I have on Healthy Habits we can incorporate in our lives starting TODAY!

1. Develop your own morning routine

I believe what we do in our mornings sets up the tone for the rest of our day. That being said, developing a good morning routine is beneficial not just on setting a productive tone to your day, but also gives you something to look forward to when you wake up.

Each morning routine is personal and different for all depending on your priorities, and how much time you have. I’d like to share mine to give you an idea how to develop yours:

For my normal days (before this community quarantine and when I had work by 7:30am), my perfect morning routine would look something like this:

• Wake up around 4:30 or earlier
• Brush my teeth
• Pray
• Put on workout clothes
• Walk to the gym
• Spend around an hour working out
• Make breakfast when I get home — typically oatmeal or a smoothie
• Shower and get ready for work
• Drive to work
• As soon as I get to work, I make a coffee
• Start my day reading the news and writing my to do list

In contrast to my morning routine now, here´s how it looks like:

• Wake up (anytime between 8 to 10am) and make my bed
• Brush my teeth
• Pray
• Go down to the kitchen, make a coffee
• Go to the patio, read my Bible
• Finally, make my breakfast

Now that I listed my typical morning routine vs my morning routine now, I actually am so thankful for all the time I have on my hands to have a slower paced morning. 🙂

2. Start everyday with a prayer and reading the Bible

This one is pretty self-explanatory but it should be the thing that should remain constant, however your morning routine looks like. Before doing anything else, make sure to spend some time with God.

I also suggest to read the Bible, because it´s how God communicates with us. You will learn so many practical things and God can even give you a direction via his words in the Bible. If you haven´t read your Bible before, I suggest starting with Matthew, Mark, Luke and John where you can learn about God´s life here on Earth.

3. Make a plan

If you want your day to be as productive as it can be, you´ve got to have a plan. I suggest spending time in the morning to write down all the things you want to accomplish during the day, and you can even go to the extent of planning your whole week and month.

You may use a notebook (bullet journaling is really nice) or if you’re a digital freak like me, you can download apps to help your productivity. Here are some of my favorites:

• Google Calendar – free calendar app. You can make several calendars: personal, one to share with your team, one to share with your family, etc
• Todoist or Any.Do – free daily to-do apps
• Moleskine Journey – paid productivity app. It has integration with google calendar, daily to dos and habits you want to track.

4. Incorporate a workout or any physical activity

Now that we have so much time on our hands, we shouldn´t have an excuse not to workout. This time especially. that there is a virus going around, we should exercise and make sure to boost our immune system.

Any physical activity like walking around the park, or lifting weights is enough, as long as you SWEAT! But if you want a more intense workout, then here are some of the workout apps I love:

Free Apps:

• Nike Run – a great app if you want to train in running, whether you´re a beginner or an athlete
• Anytime Fitness Workouts – a free app whether you are a member or not

• YouTube – there are thousands of free workout videos in YouTube, whether you want HIIT workouts, targetted workouts (for arms, abs, legs, etc), or even Yoga and Pilates sessions

Paid Apps:

• Sweat – a community workout app with several programs you can choose from
• Freeletics – a peronal traning app with different daily workouts

5. Dedicate at least an hour to learning

“Never stop learning” is one of my personal mottos. Learning doesn’t stop in school — we can learn everyday if we find a way how. My personal favorite way is having a coffee with a mentor, but since I can’t do that daily, I choose any of the following:

• Reading books
• Listening to podcast
• Signing up for online courses

For books, please refer to my previous blogpost, My Top 4 Favorite Books

Here are other books I love:

• Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
• The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin
• Elon Musk by Ashlee Vance
• Girl, Stop Apologizing by Rachel Hollis

Also, PSA! Scribt (a reading app) is offering 1 month free 😊 Simply download the app and sign up.

Podcasts I love:

• How I Built This – different entrepreneurs talk about how they built their businesses (Instagram, Airbnb, Steve Maddens and many more)
• Unfiltered Faith
• I love you so much podcast
• Mood with Lauren Elizabeth

Online Courses:

• iTunes University (free courses from Harvard, Stanford, etc)
• Skillshare (free for 1 month)
• Masterclass (paid)

6. Put down your phone

This is so easy yet so difficult to do since “our whole life is on our phones”. Well, one of the ways I manage to decrease my phone use is by uninstalling work and social media apps. I installed those on my iPad instead, which I don’t have all the time, so that means I’m not working or on social media all the time.

Another tip is that I don’t charge it during the night, so that I have to charge it during the day — meaning I have no choice but to leave it.

I hope these tips are helpful! I wish us all to be productive and come out of this quarantine healthier and more refreshed. ☺️

Have a great day!

All photo sources: Pinterest