Evening Routine Checklist

This checklist has been designed to be run in as little as 7 minutes, creating a quick, perfect end to your day.

Getting a good night’s sleep is great for feeling refreshed and rejuvenated! Having an evening routine will help you wind down,  and remove negative internal dialogue and uncomfortable thoughts.

Using this checklist, you focus on the positive aspects of your day, looking at what went well, being grateful, and considering the good deeds you undertook during your day.

This Evening Routine Checklist is about taking in the good to help you achieve a relaxed state for sleep.

According to a study about consumer behavior, that looked at 49,000 mobile phone owners from 30 different countries, 62% of study participants used their mobile phones in the last five minutes before they went to sleep.

On top of that, most people switch off my watching TV or using a laptop or tablet. Many studies have shown how unhealthy it is in terms of reducing the quality and quantity of a person’s sleep.

With this in mind, it is important to print off this template so you have a printed version to hand that you can follow every evening. For more information on how to print a template read: Export and Print Templates

How to use this checklist

At the beginning of this checklist, you will be presented with a set of specialized questions given as form fields. You are required to populate each form field with your specific data.

This checklist is short, designed to assist you to quickly create a healthy routine, and end your day on a positive note.

This checklist is designed to be used in conjunction with our Morning Routine Checklist, Daily Self-Care Checklist and Annual Self-Care Planner.

Each task in this checklist can be completed in 1 minute. We have therefore utilized Process Street’s dynamic due date feature, setting the due date for each successive task 1 minute after the previous task.

In this Evening Routine Checklist, you will be presented with the following form fields which you are required to populate with your specific data. For more information on each form field, go to our help page.

• Long Text
• Date
• Short Text
• Dropdown

Let’s start by recording the date for this checklist.

Get ahead of the game

“Make it so easy you can’t say no”  – Leo Babauta

Even though this checklist has been designed to be completed in 6 minutes, in your busy schedule, there is the danger of forgetting about your routines.

Get ahead of the game and think about what obstacles could prevent you from using this checklist every evening.

Take the time to consider how you could overcome these obstacles.

Practicing daily gratitude has been shown to help you sleep better and live longer.

Gratitude helps you direct your perception of the things that make you happy and the things that you enjoy. Dr. Philip C. Watkins wrote the book Gratitude and the Good Life, which looked at multiple studies and analyses to conclude that gratitude is one of the most important components of a happy life. This study drew the following conclusions:

• Being grateful makes you more likable and pleasant to be around;
• Gratitude helps you build and maintain relationships in a very unique way;
• Gratitude fosters prosocial behavior in yourself and your environment.

Let’s start your evening by listing three things you are grateful for using the short-text form fields given.

Doing good deeds for others has lasting effects on happiness. Good deeds could be as simple as opening the door for someone, smiling at a stranger in the street, giving a small gift to a friend, or expressing gratitude to a partner or friend.

“Character does not reveal itself in great deeds. It is the small things that betray a man’s true nature” –Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Social media comes with its benefits. But as a source of stimulation and distraction, when used outside moderation, the impacts of its use can become negative.

Facebook addiction is now classified as a psychiatric disorder. In addition, studies have shown a correlation between increased social media use and increased feelings of isolation.

With that said, it is important to be aware of how social media impacts your life, and adjust its use in accordance.

End your day by turning off social media, to create a space to control your use of these platforms.

Drawing back on the point that electronic devices can also disturb your sleep, the benefits of turning off your phone and staying away from social media are far-reaching.

It is recommended that you come away from electrical devices at least 30 minutes before bed.

Since you have come to this checklist, it is safe to assume that you want to learn, grow, and evolve.

You can think of continuous improvement as cleaning your flat. As soon as you stop cleaning, dust will collect and so there is a need to clean again.

If the only thing making us happy was to reach big goals, then happiness would be a rare occasion for us. Happiness is therefore something to be embraced in your day-to-day life.

Don’t compare yourself to others. Compare yourself to the person you were yesterday!

Although comparing yourself to others can be a source of motivation, to self-improve and set goals, it also brings drawbacks. What we often see are the tailored positive representations of another person’s life. We then compare our private reality to another’s highlights.

These comparisons can make it difficult to distinguish between behavior that is motivated by ourselves or behavior that is the result an another’s influence.

Constant comparison will chip away at self-esteem and can lead to depressive thoughts.

By ending your day asking how will I improve you can begin to detect tendencies and patterns and monitor your development based on you and no one else.

There are many ways you can relax and wind-down before bed. Some work better for others. How to realx is a personal thing. Here are a few tips to consider given by Sleep.org.

• Be mindful
• Skip screens
• Sip Chamomile Tea
• Take a hot bath or shower
• Count sheep
• Picture yourself asleep

You can also try yoga, meditation or simply reading a book to help you wind-down.

• Deloitte – Global Mobile Consumer Trends
• Undergraduate Journal of Psychology – Electronic Media Use and Sleep Quality
• Process Street Help – Export and Print Templates
• Power of Positivity – Science Explains Why Grateful People Live Longer
• Time – 7 Surprising Health Benefits of Gratitude
• Dr. Philip C. Watkins – Gratitude and the Good Life 
• Online Library – Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile, or Education [1762]
• Psychiatry Advisor – Facebook Addiction Associated With Social Insecurity
• Affirm – Social media can increase feelings of isolation
• SCL Health – Why It’s Time to Ditch the Phone Before Bed
• Stephen R. Swallow – Social comparison and negative self-evaluations: An application to depression
• Sleep.org – Nine Ways to Relax Before Bedtime
• Image – Geralt, re-sized
• Image – leninscape, re-sized

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