What's On My Daily Routine Checklist?

Welcome to my new series all about routines. While developing my own routine over the last few weeks of stay-at-home orders and quarantine, I’ve found myself writing down notes about developing my routine, working from home, having kids, keeping self-care in my day, and staying sane! I wanted to share some of this information with you, to help you succeed and feel more rested, recharged, and productive. You’ll be able to check out all the posts from this series here.

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A quick note before we begin: I took some time this week to halt my own content in order to give myself space to listen and learn. Like many other white people, and specifically white bloggers, I want to always make sure I’m doing my best to support my BIPOC peers and making space for them to feel heard. In terms of my blog, I am still working on what that means. Pivoting my content in the last year from primarily beauty to career, lifestyle, and more has been challenging—but I know in many ways I need to acknowledge the difficulty not just of mothers in finding and creating their careers, but the difficulty of BIPOC in their careers, specifically in regards to racism, discrimination, and harassment in the workplace. I never want to speak for BIPOC and so, I’m still working on listening and learning and better understanding how I can incorporate this reality into my content in a way that is respectful and honest, without speaking over those who need to be heard.

Thank you again for reading!

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What a week it has been! Since my last post on routines, I feel like the world took another hard (but necessary) pivot. If you felt stressed and overwhelmed this past week, I hope you were able to take time to show yourself kindness while also doing hard work.

It’s difficult to jump back into writing about routines when so many of our lives has been disrupted, again. Whether you are protesting or staying home (to protect those who are immunocompromised in your household), we have all had things to grapple with this week. As time moves on, we will find our routines again. I hope these posts remain helpful and timely even then.

In an ideal world, our daily routines create the backbones of our day, giving us time for both our work and ourselves. Routines are by no mean a hard schedule—as I’ve discussed before. (You can read my entire post about crafting your daily routine here.) I want you to think of your daily routine as a few guiding activities that build your day, allowing you to feel good throughout the day and do the hard work that is necessary for you, your family, and your community.

Today’s blog post is all about creating a daily routine checklist—and specifically, what’s on my checklist.

When it comes to my daily routine, I typically divide my day into 3 parts: morning, afternoon, and evening. That’s pretty basic. I have 2-3 things in each part of my day that are part of my routine and I tend to work my entire schedule around them.

Here’s my full daily routine checklist:

Typically, the first 3 items are my immediate morning routine: I check my email, I journal or do one page of a 52 Lists book, and then I make breakfast with Forrest. After that, I dive into work and/or take Forrest to my mom’s house so I can have a few hours of work time. Then, I hit #4: checking my daily schedule and reviewing my planner for tasks. As I get emails (or spot them in the morning), I usually take notes in a notebook and write out any tasks in my planner. I review this once a day to get an idea of everything I need to accomplish during the day.

Then, I work.

After lunch, I usually have an hour or 2 with Forrest and make time for a few more parts of my routine: watering my plants and taking Remus on a walk (usually with Forrest as well). These are non-work related tasks, but an important part of my day. After that, Forrest has TV time and I usually review my planner and to do list again and tackle any tasks that need done.

In the evening, I always make time to read for 20 minutes or more, usually in the bathtub. Then, I review my Clockify, making sure I’ve logged all my time and assigned it to the correct client. Without this last bit, I think I’d be a total mess.

That’s it! My daily routine checklist is relatively short, but it helps me really get a handle on my day, my goals, and what I need to achieve.

Now, let’s talk about how I put this routine together.

When you think about your routine, I want you to think about it in those same 3 chunks of your day: morning, afternoon, and evening. What things do you find yourself doing during those times? Do they work? Do they not?

Here’s my advice:

• What things do you need to do for work that will make your day easier?

• What can you do to make yourself feel good, mentally, emotionally, or physically, every single day?

• What can you do to start your day on a positive note?

I made a free daily routine checklist builder for you that in it, I help you narrow down your daily routine by having you choose from the following 3 categories:

• Basics (a few simple ways to start your day)

• Work routine

• Things that make you happy

This isn’t meant to be “you can only have these things in your routine!” These are just suggestions if you’re new to having a routine and especially if you’re new to keeping track of your routine day-to-day.

This is how I started putting my routine together: I combined the things that make me feel most energized in the morning (checking my email while drinking my coffee, journaling, and having breakfast) with things that keep me on track for work (checking Clockify and frequently reviewing my planner) and things that make me feel good (spending time with Forrest, taking a walk, and reading).

You can grab your free daily routine checklist builder by signing up for my newsletter!

Thank you again for reading! Let me know how my daily routine checklist builder helps you—or what you’d like to see included in it!

8 Empowering iPhone Wallpapers to Download Right Now

About a week ago, I posted a graphic on Instagram thatI’d whipped up late one night. I loved it almost immediately, and it was totally a fluke. I didn’t set out to make it! Using a bunch of free Canva elements, I made a few more to post on Instagram. Just fun, slightly cheesy quotes about being exceptional.

I know these kind of quotes aren’t super popular with certain crowds. However, in the last few months, I’ve started writing down and saving simple mantras that make me feel empowered. I’ve included a few of them in these wallpapers because I find them so helpful.

Seeing these mantras every single day has helped me stay on track. Therefore, iPhone wallpapers feels like a perfect option. I had such a great response to that Instagram post that I decided wallpapers was the next step. I turned those Instagram graphics into wallpapers and voila! Here they are, ready for you to download.

To download, please use the subscribe form below to sign up for my newsletter list! You’ll receive a confirmation email shortly to confirm your subscription that includes a link to download all 8 wallpapers.

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You'll receive an email shortly with your iPhone wallpapers! 

(If you have any issues with this, or don’t receive an email, don’t hesitate to reach out to me on Instagram or Twitter!)

If you use these wallpapers, feel free to tag me on Twitter or Instagram, and use the hashtag #thisweeksgoldstar on Instagram!

5 Steps for Thanksgiving Prep (+ Free Checklists!)

Preparing for Thanksgiving, whether you are hosting yourself, getting ready to travel to family, or just doing a Friendsgiving, always feels like a huge task. Thanksgiving is a big deal for a lot of people. As much as I love Christmas, I hold a special place in my heart for Thanksgiving—and everything that comes with it. I love Thanksgiving food; I love picking Thanksgiving outfits; and I love getting to spend time with family members I don’t get to see as often as I like.

That being said, Thanksgiving can be super stressful. If you’re traveling, you have a million and 1 things to remember; add in kids and it becomes easily 5 million and 10 things to remember. If you run your own business, if you are working full time, if you’re pregnant… stress on top of stress on top of possible toxic family relationships that can leave us exhausted and needing TLC… instead of refreshed.

This year, I want you to promise me that you will make sure to treat yourself with kindness and love at Thanksgiving. It can be a time of stress for lots of people, along with a disruption in routine. If you’re feeling low, make sure to treat yourself to some self-care and self-soothing activities so you can be rested and recharged.

1. Stock up on supplies in advance

Know you’re going to need like 5 bags of potatoes for your world famous mashed potatoes? Buy them now! Or buy 1 bag per week until you’ve got enough.

Know you’re going to need special activities for your toddler for a flight? Buy them now!

Get what you know you’ll need in advance, before it can 1) sell out or 2) stress you out. The closer we get to Thanksgiving, the more hectic the grocery store will be. I always do my best to avoid grocery stores the week of Thanksgiving; if I urgently need something, I try to replace it with something I do have and I try to have everything I’ll need plenty in advance.

Make a big list of everything you might need and go get it this weekend or during next week.

2. Make a list (and check it twice)

To repeat: make a list. I’ve included at the bottom of this post a PDF of my Thanksgiving checklists I made for myself! I also included some self-care and self-soothing checklists, as well as customizable options if you want to write in your own ideas. Make your lists, keep them close, and find comfort in knowing that, no matter how stressful this season is, you have options to make yourself feel better and reduce that stress.

Here’s a sneak peak of one of these lists:

3. Have self-care in place

For many people, Thanksgiving can bring up reminders of past behaviors that aren’t healthy or happy. Many of us have good Thanksgiving memories, but for me personally, Thanksgiving can be triggering for some of my more negative body-focused behaviors, such as restricting or working out excessively. If this is something you struggle with, make sure you have self-care routines in place to stay healthy. And remember: you can always remove yourself from a situation that makes you feel uncomfortable.

Here are a few suggestions for Thanksgiving self-care:

• Make sure to have your medication if you are traveling & take it according to your prescription.

• Ask a few friends to be on standby if you need someone to talk to. You can also ask your therapist if they have a phone number you can call if you need extra help or if you can email or text them.

• You don’t have to venture into your hometown and respond to every person you remember from your past. It’s ok to walk away.

• Practice breathing exercises in advance to calm your heart rate and help yourself stay calm in situations that might trigger you.

4. Add self-soothing to your routine

Self-soothing is a part of self-care. Sometimes, the media mistakes self-soothing routines as self-care, but the truth is, self-care often is unpleasant and doesn’t feel good. Self-care is going to therapy (which can be emotionally exhausting), whereas self-soothing is a behavior you do afterwards to feel better, like journaling, listening to music, or taking a bath.

As Thanksgiving approaches, if you struggle with the season, make sure to not just have your self-care routine in place (for both home and travel), but self-soothing techniques. Here are a few suggestions:

• If you’re traveling, take along a book you love to read and make sure you have music or podcasts that make you feel good to listen to.

• Have plenty of self-soothing supplies on hand like bubble bath, bath bombs, and scented lotion.

• Give yourself time to self-sooth as part of each day of the holiday. Taking 10-15 minutes every evening to do something to sooth yourself will make a huge difference.

• Download a sound machine app on your phone for soothing sounds to help you sleep or play while you journal, meditate, or practice breathing exercises.

5. Remember that perfection isn’t necessary

No holiday, no day, will ever be perfect. I think we all know that. If you forget a critical part of the meal, no one is going to really care that much. Just say, “oops, I forgot!” It’s not the end of the world. It’s easier to say that than to live it, I totally get it. That’s why I recommend practicing some deep breathing exercises beforehand.

Here’s a breathing exercise I like:

• Breathe in and imagine you are filling a pitcher at your sink. Let it fill all the way to the top.

• Breathe out and imagine you are pouring the pitcher of water down the drain. Pour it all the way out.

That one is my favorite because I like to imagine the sound of the water. You can also find lots of great apps on your smartphone that help with breathing and meditation.

Do you feel ready for Thanksgiving? I’m getting excited, but also nervous. If you’re feeling like me, I hope you grab these free checklists—I know I’m already using mine to get ready!

How to Plan the Perfect Christmas & Stay Organized

Repeat after me: there is no such thing as a perfect Christmas.

Your Christmas might not look like a Hallmark movie (and good gravy, wouldn’t we all love an ornately decorated Victorian farmhouse mansion to cover in garland?). Your Christmas might not even look like the one from the Santa Clause.

Whatever Christmas you love, that’s the perfect Christmas for you.

For me, Christmas is this: the tree lit, watching movies on the couch with Danny, Forrest, and Remus, fresh cookies in the kitchen, a candle lit and smelling like either 1) cinnamon or 2) pine trees. That’s Christmas. When I was younger, Christmas was making sugar cookies with my mom, watching the old, classic claymation movies on TV with my brother, and waking up at 3am to open presents (and try to make as little noise as possible with my brother). Christmas every year can be something different, but I want to put the disclaimer here that, there is no perfect Christmas; there is no prescriptive Christmas.

If your Christmas a little Christmas tree with rainbow fairy lights and a Netflix binge on your laptop, then baby, godspeed.

No matter what your Christmas is, I want you to have the most perfect one possible.

For the last two months, I’ve been working on a Christmas planner for myself. I’m planning to make a BUNCH of embroidery projects for my friends & family this year, and organizing everything was starting to become… a lot. I had lists upon lists of thread numbers, patterns, fabric I needed to buy, hoop sizes… it was a lot. I was tired. So I started mocking up a gift planner sheet where I could record everything I needed.

Then, I started working on a planner for my decorations, to start cataloguing everything I had and figuring out if we would need to buy more lights (aka which of ours died during the year they were in storage). From there, I started making all kinds of parts to this personal planner: bucket lists, shopping lists, cookie backing lists, a memories sheet to add to my scrapbook. I showed it to Danny once I had it printed and he said: “are you going to share this on your blog?”

It hadn’t even occurred to me to share it, but I started digging around on Pinterest and there are some Christmas planners out there… but so many of them put the onus on gifts and buying and planning out your Black Friday. That’s not something I’m super interested; I just needed one place to keep my lists, keep a running tab on my embroidery projects (and who I’ve gotten a gift for and who I haven’t, so I don’t have to crawl under the Christmas tree to check), and maybe write down a few important memories.

I thought: why wouldn’t other people enjoy this?

So here it is: the Christmas planner of your dreams. It includes:

• 3 pages of gift lists to record who has a gift & who needs a gift (plus a notes section for any details, such as crafting supplies). This is perfect if you like making gifts, like I do!

• A decoration planner to record what you have where. Keeping track of decorations always feels like a chore. Come February, I end up realizing I’ve had bits of decor still up, with everything else packed away.

• A shopping list for home, work & school, and “misc” to help keep you organized when it comes to remembering if you need more flour or powdered sugar for those super important sugar cookies.

• A bucket list to keep track of movies that you must watch, activities that make your Christmas (trip to the Christmas tree farm, anyone?), cookies that you love to make, and more.

• A memories page to record the best things that happened, everything you did, and your memories of Christmas day right away. This page also includes a section of things to remember for next year, like that your kiddo loved a specific movie or song!

• A page just for Christmas Eve & Day to write down your plans. This page actually has two sections for Christmas eve because I found I needed much more room than was available! But you can use the second section for notes or Boxing Day!

I keep mine in a folder on my desk, but I plan to laminate the pages once Christmas is over to save in our family binder. You can keep yours loose leaf if you want, put them in a binder, cut them up to stick in your planner—whatever works!

I hope you love this planner as much as I do. To download, click the button below—it will take you to a separate landing page, but don’t worry! Your planner is well within reach.

Thanks for reading & happy holidays! If you’d like more planners like this one, let me know in the comments!

2 Free Winter iPhone Background Wallpapers

In the meadow we can build a snowman

and pretend that he is Parson Brown!

Halloween is OVER! Done! Finito! And you know what that means?

That sound? In the distance? What is that?

It’s me, slam dunking my pumpkins into the garbage can and throwing my Christmas decorations.

I love Autumn. I do. I love it! But I think I might love Christmas just a smidge more. And I am of the belief that Christmas starts November 1, no question about it. It does not help that the weather here has been freezing cold. I want a fire (we’re getting a fireplace installed SOON). I want a Christmas tree. I want Christmas movies. I want it ALL! The whole shebang!

Friday morning, I woke up and immediately searched out some winter-y iPhone wallpapers on Pinterest. The results were… not my favorite. I didn’t want anything too Christmas-y yet, but I didn’t want it to be Thanksgiving themed. I decided to make my own, because why not?

You have two options to choose from: blue mountains & green pine trees. Both look lovely (if I do say so myself). To download, click the buttons below. Happy November! Stay warm!