- Um, is it time to go to sleep?
I'm down, I'm totally down.
(drowsy music)
What's up, socials, welcome back to AmyTV.
Since we talk a lot around here about
how to best use the precious minutes of our day,
I wanted to share with you what I do
to set myself up for the next day
by having a very productive evening routine.
Okay, but Amy, you're always saying
that the morning is important.
Why do we care about nighttime?
Why do I need to be productive at night, too?
That's a good question.
I understand your frustration with me at this point in time.
But I personally believe that a great morning
starts with a good night's sleep,
and I don't get a good night's sleep
unless a few things have happened
before my head hits the pillow.
So I'm really excited to give you
a glimpse of what that looks like for me
and even if you don't have quite as many things on your list
doesn't mean that it can't make your evenings
just a little bit better.
Before we dive in, I want to make sure
you're subscribed to this channel.
I'd love to make more stuff like this,
maybe a morning routine, obviously,
would be a good one to be next,
so subscribe and let me know if that's a good idea.
But if you don't subscribe, then,
I will just,
not do it, I guess.
Really great way to get people to subscribe, Amy,
just cry a little, just cry.
All right, let's get into it.
This is my productive evening routine.
First, if I can at all help it, whatsoever,
I like to step away from the office by 5:00.
I do this because I know Vincenzo
is gonna be home around 6:00,
just depending on how things are going at the office
and if he has any appointments,
and ideally, I'm already done with the computer
and not, like, sucked into a bunch of work at that point,
if I don't have to be, because it's a lot better when
he comes home from the office,
that I'm a little bit disconnected
and also for me to be able to draw that line for myself.
I obviously work from home, this is my home office,
so being able to say, okay, it's time
to leave the office now, it's time for home life,
I think that's a really great way
that I set off my evening, the best possible.
Very very easy for me to just get addicted to work.
So that's step number one.
That time isn't always a hard stop,
but it's what I try to gauge as, hey,
normal people are done with work at this point,
so maybe you should be, too.
The next thing I do is I try as many nights a week
as possible to cook dinner for me and Vincenzo.
I am not a good cook.
Please do not think differently of me.
I have not mastered everything, people.
I am not a good cook.
That's why I'm so grateful that I found Blue Apron
a number of years ago.
I've been ordering their meals for so long
because they help me stay homemade
and healthy as much as possible,
and not eating out as much, which is so easy
when you don't have that much time.
The reason I love Blue Apron is
they actually do save me time.
Now, obviously you can order out,
but you're gonna eat like crap all the time.
What I love about Blue Apron is
I can still make food at home,
not feel like a complete dummy,
and not be at the grocery store for five hours
trying to find something
I'm only going to use one teaspoon of.
Blue Apron, like I said, great for eating healthy
and cooking at home,
not only are the recipes incredibly delicious,
but they are chef-designed so you feel pretty legit
when you make them.
Vincenzo literally says every single night
I make a Blue Apron meal...
- Honey, this is the best one we've ever had.
- And that makes me feel good because
I cannot cook that well, but, that makes me also feel good
because I feel like our dollars toward food
are being spent even more wisely.
So what I love is that all of the ingredients
are farm fresh, they come in a box
in the exact proportions that you need
and it is literally that simple.
The recipes are so easy to follow
and I don't have to have some crazy machine
that processes food a certain way
in order to be able to achieve the end result.
PS, these meals are totally affordable.
They're usually around 10 bucks per person
so I highly suggest you check it out
and if you act quickly, I'm really pumped
because Blue Apron is offering you guys
something really cool if you want to give it a try.
The first 50 people who sign up
with my link in the description
are going to receive $30 off their first Blue Apron box,
so this is fantastic because this really helps you
get some free dinners, so, make that happen.
Again, first 50 people, do not delay.
See why we're subscribed with notifications on?
Uh-huh, I have your back.
The next part of my productive nighttime routine
after Vincenzo says that I did an amazing job making dinner
is to make sure the dishes get done,
because I absolutely cannot deal
with dishes in the sink when I wake up
in the morning to go make coffee.
There's just this whole issue that I have
of picking up the coffee pot to fill it
with water in the sink,
and there being dishes also in the sink.
It makes me feel like my coffee is contaminated.
So the dishes have got to get done the same night,
and, yeah, I might be using a lot of water,
not gonna lie, because I probably run the dishwasher a lot.
But, dishes are done.
Next, I need to clean my face because I just ate
and there's probably things on it,
and also my makeup from the day, needs to be removed.
My nighttime skin routine is a lot of steps
so I'm not gonna walk through it here.
I'm just gonna give you sort of an idea
of what it looks like at this point,
but this is, I was just telling somebody,
I was at a bachelorette party over the weekend,
and I feel like this is my meditation.
I haven't been able to master sitting still
and doing like a traditional meditation,
no matter what app that I download.
I give it a try and it doesn't seem to work out,
but I will totally feel like I am in my zone
meditating, calming myself from a long day
when I do my nighttime skincare.
Same thing in the morning, it's very meditative as well.
Next, I'm basically all ready for bed
but I know that I want to get on my phone after this
because most of my day is so structured,
I don't get any real playtime,
like just looking at Twitter or Instagram or whatever,
so I schedule 30 minutes at least of scroll time,
so basically that means scrolling on Instagram
while sitting on the couch and watching TV with Vin,
because that's usually what he likes to do
to kind of cool down his day as well, scroll and TV.
Scroll and TV time, is a thing, in our home.
Once I feel like I've gotten my fill
and I've commented and liked my little heart out,
I tuck my phone into bed, meaning,
it has its own bed, it's called a charger in my office
and we say good night to each other.
I know that I do not sleep as well
when I'm staring at that screen before bed,
so, it's just gotta happen.
I did everything I needed to do on it.
There is nothing urgent that's going to happen
at this point in the day that I need to know about.
The phone has got to go.
Since I'm putting my phone in my office,
I usually stop there for just a few minutes,
open up my bullet journal, look at my calendar
for the next day, and look at some of my deadlines
and just start writing down the things
that I need to do the next day.
I do keep a little task list of
what every day I should be doing,
but it's really just for me to refresh my own memory
because I've already blocked out that time on my calendar,
ideally, if I've done my planning far enough in advance,
which usually I have, but I like to go to bed at night
knowing what I need to be prepared for the next day.
Once I'm without my devices, I head into the bedroom
and the first thing I do is diffuse some oils.
I really really love lavender at nighttime.
It is so calming, and I have to give my mom credit for this
because I didn't know anything about this oils movement
until she bought me a diffuser and some oils to start with
and so I just love it now, I cannot go to sleep
without something being diffused next to my head.
I'm also one of those people that goes to sleep
with white noisy kind of things happening,
so that's been really nice for that, too,
because there's a very soft sound
that comes from my diffuser.
And finally, I'm in bed, I'm probably gonna pass out
really really quickly but to guarantee that, I read.
(laughs) I try to read for at least 30 minutes
before I fall asleep, but,
reading really does put me out when I am tired
at the end of the day, so it's the perfect thing to be doing
in order to make myself really feel
like I'm falling asleep, not forcing myself to sleep.
All right, that's my productive evening routine.
I'd love to hear more about yours.
What's your favorite thing that you do each night
that you feel prepares you going into the next day
or makes you feel more productive?
Share that in the comments below.
If you enjoyed this video, make sure
you give it a thumbs up and everything we talked about today
that you can go and check out will be linked
in the description below.
That's all for today, socials.
Thank you so much for tuning in, I appreciate it as always.
Make sure you subscribe for good vibes
and remember to continue to go after the life that you want.
Cheers.