Hello and welcome, or welcome back to my blog! Today I am going to be sharing my ideal morning routine in nursing school. I am 100% a morning person and I like to stick to the same routine and sleep schedule every day. If I stay up especially late one night or sleep in late, I feel like I am completely thrown off. I also have a puppy, which is a big part of how I structure my mornings. However, not every morning always goes to plan and it shifts throughout the quarter (as my stress levels rise!).
For some background, if you’re new here, I am in an ADN (2-year) nursing program at a community college. I just completed my first year and am set to graduate in June 2022. After that, I plan on attending the RN to BSN program at a university while working. Due to COVID, I didn’t get to go to clinical until this last spring quarter. Up until then, it was virtual simulations for clinical. Every quarter so far I’ve posted a recap of how it went, which you can check out below:
- First Quarter of Nursing School Recap
- First Quarter of Nursing School Recap
- Second Quarter Nursing School Recap
- Third Quarter Nursing School Recap
Other pre-nursing and nursing school posts that are up on my blog can also be found below:
- How to Get an A in Anatomy and Physiology
- Tips for Pre-Nursing Students
- How to Get into Nursing School
- How I Study in Nursing School
Ok, let’s get into my ideal morning routine in nursing school!
My Ideal Morning Routine in Nursing School
This routine is the same that I follow from Friday to Wednesday. On Thursday (this quarter, at least), I have clinical at 6:00 am. I still wake up at the same time, to keep my sleep consistent. After waking up, I will just get ready and then go to clinical.
5:00 am
At 5:00 am I wake up and drink my pre-workout. It is so hard to work out with a puppy and I hate working out mid-day. Luckily if I work out this early in the morning, not only do I get it over with, but my puppy is still asleep. Otherwise, she would be jumping all over me or laying directly beside me on my yoga mat. I have been trying to work out 5 days a week for the past couple of weeks, so my off days are Thursday and Friday when I have clinical.
For my workouts, I do Obe Fitness and I usually go for cardio boxing, pilates, sculpt, or yoga sculpt classes. I made a post about Obe Fitness and long time ago, which you can read here. Also if you want to try it, you can use my guest pass link for 2 weeks free, here. I usually try to work out for 30 minutes to an hour and do one or two classes, but it really depends on how I am feeling that day.
6:00 am – 7:00 am
After my workout, I will shower and get ready for the day. Then I will try to enjoy a cup of coffee while checking my phone. Around 7 is when my pup usually wakes up and I feed her before taking her for a walk.
7:00 am – 7:30 am
Usually, the walk that I take my pup on is about 30 minutes. My hope is that by the end of it, she will be chill enough to chew on a bully stick or play with a toy so that I can get some work done.
7:30 am – 8:00 am
By this time I am starving and so I will make some breakfast and then write my to-do list for the day. On my to-do list, I will write down around 5 assignments or tasks that I want to complete for the day (reading a chapter of the textbook, doing an ATI, etc.). I will also write down the other things that I want to accomplish for the day unrelated to school, whether it’s running an errand or cleaning up the house for an hour.
8:00 am -10:00 am
So on Mondays, I will have an exam from 9:00 am – 10:00 am about every other week. On these days I will review a couple of things for a half-hour before driving to school and taking the test. My lectures this quarter are 12:00 pm – 3:00 pm so fortunately, I don’t have to go to any of those during the mornings. The remaining days of the week I will use this time to study, read the textbook and work on assignments until 10:00 am.
10:00 am – 12:00 pm
I try to keep nursing school as a full-time Monday through Friday job. For me, this means that I use most of my day to be productive and study. At 10:00 am, I will usually take my pup on another 30-minute walk or to the dog park if I am really busy and need her to relax if she has extra energy that day. If I am not taking her for a walk, I will use this time to take a break. After, I will study again or work on assignments until 11:30 when I make lunch.
Weekends
Weekends are more flexible because my boyfriend, Danny, works Monday- Friday and has the weekends off. He usually sleeps in, but around 10 we might go do something together. Since my study time is broken up throughout the day on the weekends, I will sometimes do assignments later than I would on weeknights.
That is pretty much it for my morning routine in nursing school! It pretty much consists of working out, walking my dog, and studying. It’s helped a lot to make a routine for myself so that I can keep myself accountable every day. I also used to skip workouts, stay later, and work on school work at night when I didn’t keep myself accountable and it really wasn’t as productive for me. I highly recommend coming up with a morning routine that works for you and sticking to it if you’re a nursing student trying to figure out how to manage everything!
Thanks for reading my ideal morning routine in nursing school! I also posted an evening routine which you can find here. If you want to be notified of future posts, you can like my Facebook page here or follow my Instagram here.
