Do you have a morning routine, or do you just get swept away with the chaos? Most blogs encourage you to get plenty of sleep so you can wake up naturally, have a cup of coffee while you read your bible, and then get in a nice three-to-five mile walk, inviting Vitamin D into your body the way you invited Jesus into your heart.

What if you are in the season of life where you have to reheat your coffee five times during the morning? What if you live in the Pacific Northwest where it’s hardly ever sunny? What if you’ve just never slept well and you keep meaning to go get a sleep study but that would involve calling your insurance company to see if it’s even covered in the first place?

Having a routine helps to quiet those crazy what-ifs.

A routine can be as simple as this: Wake up. Thank God.

Then you can add things you normally do anyway: get dressed, make your bed, unplug your phone—-hopefully you have plugged it in across the room so you don’t wake up and instantly start scrolling—-and head to the bathroom. Choosing to get dressed and make your bed before you ever leave your bedroom in the morning is a Routine that allows you to put closure to your sleeptime. Your bed is made, so there’s less of a temptation to crawl back in it. You have clothes on, so you can now go do errands if you needed to. Your phone is in your back pocket and you know it’s there because when you went into the bathroom you took it out and put it on the counter so it wouldn’t fall into the drink.

Notice I didn’t even mention anything about reading the Bible? This might not be part of your morning routine. For a lot of people, especially mothers of littles, spending time with God in His Word is only possible once the kids are asleep, so it’s the last thing you do before sleeping. Or you could do what I did and stash a Bible in the laundry room and the minivan and sneak in a little Scripture as you go. Most mornings begin with action: kids, work, exercise, chaos, etc. Spending time in deep reflection over a steaming cup of some tasty beverage might not ever happen, so ditch the guilt and create a morning routine that serves YOU and YOUR family, not the family on the podcast whom you’ll never meet.

Once you have a routine established, take note of the times it falls to pieces. For example, if you’ve added “make bed” to the morning routine, when do you skip this step? Is it always on the weekends when the schedule is different, or was it a one-off because one of the kids had an accident and you rushed out and never quite got back to make your bed? Knowing the reason behind a missed step is important in knowing how to fix it.

The point of a morning routine is that it serves YOU and gets you started the same way every day. Familiarity, not chaos. Plans, not wishes. Enjoy it, even if it is as simple as “wake up, thank God.”