Moms: You Don't Need a Better Morning Routine. You Just Need Five Minutes. (And Here's How to Get It)

Everyone has advice on how to build a better morning routine.

Wake up earlier. Exercise. Journal. Meditate. Drink more water. Make a healthy breakfast. Don't look at your phone.

And somehow accomplish all of this before the kids wake up.

Here's another idea: Don't.

You don't need another morning routine to manage. You don't need to wake up an hour earlier. And you definitely don't need to add seven more things to the list of things you're supposed to be doing before 7 a.m.

What if you just took five minutes?

Five minutes that aren't about packing lunches, finding shoes, answering emails, finding $5 for the field trip, locating the missing water bottle or figuring out how everyone in your house is getting where they need to go.

Just five minutes that belong to you. Here's how to find them.

1. Make your coffee first.

Before breakfast. Before lunches. Before you start answering everyone else's questions.

Make your coffee.

And here’s the key: Pour it into a Simple Modern Voyager 360, and then give yourself permission to actually drink some of it while it's still hot. You don't have to sit peacefully at a kitchen table for 30 minutes. We're not trying to create an unrealistic morning fantasy here.

Stand at the counter if you need to. Sip as you make ponytails or slide on socks. Remember, your five minutes can travel with you. 

But take five minutes and drink your coffee before the morning completely belongs to everyone else.

2. Step outside.
You don't need to take a three-mile walk. You don't even need to walk.

Take your coffee or fill your Trek with water and step outside for five minutes. Sit on the porch. Stand in the driveway. Walk to the end of the street and back.

Fresh air, a little quiet and five minutes without someone asking where their other shoe is can do wonders.

Then go back inside. That's it. You did it.

3. Stop trying to make those five minutes productive.

Moms, this might be the hardest one. You don't have to use your five minutes to make a list. You don't need to listen to a personal-development podcast. You don't need to answer an email while you drink your coffee. You don't need to organize today's schedule. You don't even need to meditate.
You are allowed to spend five minutes doing something for absolutely no productive reason.

Listen to a song you love. Sit somewhere quiet. Look out the window. Drink your coffee without scrolling. Productivity can wait five minutes.

4. Claim the five minutes after drop-off.

Maybe mornings at home simply aren't going to be quiet right now. That's okay.

Your five minutes can happen after everyone gets where they're going.

Once you've made it through the drop-off line, resist the urge to immediately launch into the next thing.

Park for five minutes. Take the long way home. Finish the coffee that's been riding along in your Voyager all morning. Put on your favorite song and listen to the whole thing before you start answering messages.

There is no rule that says your morning reset has to happen at 5:30 a.m. Take it when you can get it.

5. Make one small thing feel like a treat.

We tend to think taking care of ourselves requires something big: a day off, a massage, a weekend away, an uninterrupted afternoon.

Those things are wonderful. They're also not available every Tuesday morning.

So make something small better. Buy the coffee you really like. Add the creamer you save for weekends on a Tuesday morning. Find a fall cup you love. Fill your Mesa Loop or Trek with ice and the drink you'll actually want later. Turn on the song. Open the window. Sit in the sunny spot.

None of these things will transform your life. That's not the point. They're simply little reminders that you are a person living this day, too. You’re not just the person responsible for making everyone else's day happen.

Five minutes counts. And give yourself some grace.

Some mornings, you may get 30 minutes. Some mornings, you may get two.

And there will absolutely be mornings when someone can't find a backpack, the dog throws up, everyone is late and your coffee sits untouched until 10:17 a.m.

That's life. The goal isn't to create another routine you can fail at. It's to start noticing the small spaces that already exist in your day, and occasionally deciding that one of them belongs to you.