Sunday Evening Routine Ideas
Okay my fellow mamas, today I’m sharing with you guys my Sunday evening routine, a few Sunday evening routine ideas for you, and how you can get yourself and your family ready to have the best week ever.
You can take this with a grain of salt, I’m sure we all have different things we need to include in our evening routine that are specific to our families, but here’s what an ideal Sunday evening looks like for me.
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This routine kind of starts earlier in the day on Sunday because Sunday is my day to catch up on any laundry that didn’t get done throughout the week. Sometimes I have just a couple of loads, but then sometimes, like on this particular Sunday, I have 6 loads of laundry to work my way through, so I’ll really start that in the afternoon and wrap it up and put everything away as a part of my evening routine. This is really just to be sure that everyone has plenty of clothes for the week. I feel like if I get started on Sunday with all of the laundry done, I’ve gotten a great head start for the week.
I know a lot of people like to hate on Mondays, but honestly, it is one of my favorite days of the week because I am usually so prepared that it is one of my most productive days.
Bonus: If you have kids, and maybe you can even do this for yourself, too. I love to set out clothes for them for the entire week. If you have somewhere to stash them so that little kids don’t get ahold of them and strew them across the house, this can save so much time, and just take one thing off your mama plate for the entire week.
Okay, so the afternoon starts turning into the evening for me, and I’m usually starting to prepare dinner and get everything ready for that. I feel like evenings can sometimes be so hectic, between getting everyone fed, bathed, and ready for bed, it can be a lot. My husband works retail so sometimes I’m on my own too, though if I’m being honest I do my best work when he’s at work, haha.
After dinner, I’ve been trying to teach my kiddos to put their own plates into the sink. I’ve usually got a mess of dishes from cooking, but we go straight from dinner to getting the boys their bath. This is a habit from when my littlest one was still a toddler and usually so messy from dinner, he had to have a bath when he was done. But anyway, after the kiddos get their bath, I can usually send them off to dress themselves (hallelujah for that!).
That’s when I get to work on my kitchen. Really, I’m just getting all of the dishes switched into the dishwasher, getting that going, and washing anything by hand that doesn’t fit. Then, I’ll clean off my countertops. Of course, like everyone else I am obsessed with Mrs. Meyers multi-surface spray. My favorite scent right now is the Iowa Pine, we stocked up when it first came out for winter because my husband and I both really liked it. They’re technically aromatherapy, so that helps when my evenings get crazy too, ha. I make sure everything is back where it belongs in the cabinets, and once my counters are clean I’ll also spray and wipe down the kitchen table from dinner. After that, I’m ready to sweep up my kitchen. If you can implement one thing in your evening routine, I’d really encourage it to be going to bed with a clean kitchen. I know I’m getting up every morning and preparing breakfast for everyone, my husband usually cooks up something to take in his lunch, and if the kitchen is a mess, we’re both going to get cranky and our morning is going to start off on the wrong foot. A clean kitchen before bed honestly just helps me sleep better and makes a total difference in my day the next day.
Ahh, clean kitchen.
Also, my favorite part of having a fresh clean kitchen is a clean sink- can you tell I’ve watched and read a lot from the fly lady?
I’m not sure what the premise is behind this for everyone else, but for me, it just means that all the evil dishes are done! I’m not really one to “shine” my sink like she says, sorry not sorry.
I do, however, use these cleaning printables to keep me on track with my cleaning routine, and part of that is some things that need to be done every day, like dishes, cleaning my countertops, and cleaning my sink in the evenings.
Okay, so once that is all done, I head over to the laundry room and switch over my final loads, and I take just a few minutes to fold up what is left. My coffee table usually turns into the landing zone for laundry folding until it is all done and put away. By this time if my kiddos aren’t done getting pajamas on I hurry them along and have them put away their laundry. My 6-year-old has this down, he’s been practicing for a few years, but my 3-year-old definitely still needs help.
After they’ve done that, we take a minute to sit down and read a couple of books from their bookshelf. This helps everybody get wound down if pajama time turned into a run around like a banshee time, which it often does. After we read books, I’ll have them grab any toys left in the living room or any dirty clothes they’ve left, and do a quick pickup of their bedroom, too. On Sundays especially we locate my older son’s backpack and lunch box just to be sure any papers have been taken care of, we don’t have anything important happening the next day that I didn’t know about and that his ice pack for his lunch is put away.
By this time it is usually bedtime. I get some crazy looks when I tell people that my boys go to bed around 7:30 on weeknights, but they have always been really great sleepers since they were babies, they love their sleep. They do stay up for a bit chatting since they share a room, but they’re usually asleep by 8:30.
Once they are in bed, I can sit down and plan my week. I love having this time to get everything off of my brain and into my planner. I try to get a basic outline of the week going with any important events, and a rough idea of what I’ll be doing for work that week. I only make my to-do list fully for Monday. I wake up at 4:30 am each morning to work, and I don’t want to think that early, so it is important to have a to-do list ready to go. After that I’m showering, blow drying my hair (because Lord knows if I’ll get another chance to actually blow dry my hair all week)… and I get myself ready to head to bed. After that, I try to spend a little bit of time just relaxing. I’d love to say that I unplug and I’m not on my phone during that time, but let’s be honest, most of the time I’m on it. Haha, no shame here.
But that is my Sunday evening routine. I hope that one day it becomes a habit and my every night routine, but if I can make it happen on Sunday, and one or two other nights throughout the week, I’m doing pretty good.
If you are looking to overhaul your evening routine, I love this 14-day course from Crystal Paine, Make Over Your Evenings. I just love her and have looked up to her for a really long time. She has some great tips and advice on overhauling your routines to bring yourself peace and productivity.
What other things do you include in your Sunday night routine? Share in the comments!
You might also like these other “routine” posts on my site-
