Finding a Rhythm: What will benefit me?

Since I've become a mother, my daily life has become filled with the responsibility of taking care of those around me. It's very easy to neglect yourself when you are a wife and mother. And if you fail to make time for your own needs and interests, you will get run down very quickly.

So when thinking about the routines I'd like to create around our home, I need to make sure that I also think about including things that will benefit my own health and spirit.

• Waking early. To be able to do this without it making me even more tired, this also means that I need to go to bed at a decent time every night. Waking early gives me a little bit of time to think about my day and eat my breakfast in peace before the little munchkins wake up and demand my time. 
• Going to the gym. I have never been a huge fan of exercise, but every time I workout, I always feel so wonderful afterwards. And, the girls LOVE the childcare at the gym.
• Down time. Whether it's sitting my butt on the couch during naptime or hiding in my room to read a book while the girls play, I want to make sure I give myself time every day to do whatever I'd like.

Wow. Not too much to add here. Sure, I have a lot of things I'd like to work on doing better this year - drinking more water, exercising more, wasting less time on Pinterest and Facebook - but those aren't necessarily things that I want to include in my routine. Adding those sorts of things to an everyday "to-do" list only make me feel more unproductive when everything fails to get crossed off the list each day. I TRY to do the things for myself listed above, but they are never worked into a particular routine. Thus, I'm not very good at doing them.

Now that I've tried to figure out what kinds of things I want incorporated into a routine, I've got to find the best way to actually put a routine in place. There are lots of ideas from other mamas all over the internet, but what works for one mom, may not work so well for me. I may try one or two suggestions before finding what is the best fit for myself and my kids, but hopefully, it won't take too long to get something put together.