My Morning Routine

Ahhh, the infamous morning routine.

In my opinion, people either laugh at them or swear by them. First of all, What is it, really? I mean, We see the subject being alluded to all over the internet. People are always saying things like oh my god herbal tea at 6 am has changed my life, or “I only wrote 20,00 words in my morning journal -I might as well be illiterate!

It’s here where I sympathise with all you lot who hate the whole early bird catches the worm thing. There’s a lot of fake news – a whole lot of clickbait and illegitimate ideas surrounding a topic like this. So Let’s strip it back to basics. many of you will follow a morning routine perhaps without even realising. it. just because you don’t call it that doesn’t mean it fails to exist. Anything that you habitually do after getting up each day can be considered part of your routine. And it can be as unofficial, or strict, or minimalist or tightly packed as you like.

That’s the beauty of it. You have control. Pure flexibility. It’s about recognising when you are at your best – as in, when are you most creative or most likely to knuckle down and get things done. Structure your day accordingly.

Believe me, if you’re a student I totally understand that having full autonomy over your day is pretty much impossible. I get that. But this episode isn’t about daily routines, so never mind. All I’m saying is if you manage to start the early hours on the right foot, the rest of the day should follow suit.

But enough about the what ifs and wherefores, cos I bet most of you are here for actionable advice I respect that. As we all know, this is all well and good in theory, but what could a typical day actually look like. An for that I wish to discuss my own typical morning routine and how that has adapted and changed over time.

Full disclaimer: As of this exact moment, the 27th March 2021, I am not officially following a particular morning schedule. I still have some kind of routine but it’s very rough around the edges and varies day to day. ever since school started again after the third lockdown re-adjusting has been a challenge so my habits might take a little while to fit in. but that’s fine that’s expected. For informational purposes, though I will refer to the routine I had at the very height of lockdown last year- one I followed almost religiously for ages – not because I had to, I actually wanted to… It felt satisfying.

So a typical day for me would begin around 6-6:30 in the morning. again please don’t wonder what time I got up today for god’s sake. anyway, the first thing I’d do after that -the very first thing – would be to make my bed. I’ll admit, it sounds pretty-bog standard. I actually heard about this from a guy called Jim Kwik, he’s a mentor and productivity coach who’s worked with everyone from Richard Branson to like the cast of X-MEN.

I’m not the biggest fan of pop psychology but what he said really resonated with me. Basically, if the first thing you do is to make your bed, you’re starting the day off with success. It’s as simple as that. Your freshly laid out linen acts as a signal that you’re in control -it’s essentially the very first ‘win’ of the day.

So after I made the bed I usually got changed and headed to the kitchen for a glass of water. again, I know it’s cliche but if you’re like me and you wake up feeling like a raisin, then getting some fluids in your system is a good start. I find it refreshing as well and helps me wake up a little. Immediately after that I’d grab my headphones and head out the door for a walk. This was crazy. anyone who knows me even a little bit knows that I am so NOT a morning person. Just the pure opposite, actually. I use to try everything to stop my inner zombie from taking over. I’d wash my face a hundred times. I’d take a shower first thing- cold ones too you know. I even jumped straight from my bed into workout mode -I don’t think my insides have ever fully recovered.

But.. a walk? It’s so straightforward. And I know people who’d rather the day off with a run, and more power to you. But honestly, if you just need to get a bit of fresh air or want to stop feeling sluggish, half an hour to an hour brisk walking around your neighbourhood will do you just fine. It really wakes you up. Also, early morning walks just hit different. there’s something about the empty streets when everyone’s still in bed. Normally it’s a rush of people commuting or going to school. but pretty quiet just after dawn. it feels good -like you’re getting a headstart.

My walks would take anywhere between 45 minutes to an hour. I’d return home at 7:30 AM and get some coffee ready. Before lockdown. I never drank coffee. Never touched the stuff. 1 year later, totally non-negotiable.

Next, you’re gonna like this. It’s is a game-changer. Make coffee, then shower, precisely in that order. Why? Because you’ll step into that bathroom after you’ve brewed knowing that every second you spend in there, your favourite mug is getting colder and colder. You’re creating an incentive -a very specific type of motivation, intrinsic motivation not to waste too much time in there, so you can enjoy your drink while it’s hot. Daily coffee, daily shower. Daily time-saver. Win-win. win.

I don’t know if that’s a thing already but I was too gassed when I thought of it. It’s one of those super simple yet non-obvious points. most of my tips come from actual real productive people so when I thought of this one I was like damn this stuff really rubs off on you, jheeze. Also, if you want bonus points, in the time it takes for the shampoo and shower gel to soak in, you could also brush your teeth. that’s like the productivity gold standard, just saying.

After the shower, I’d get changed into my actual clothes for the day – all laid out beforehand obviously cos it’s lockdown and I really had nothing better to do. I’d normally be at my desk around 7:45 or so. Recently I figured out a way to bypass my password and have my computer just wake up by itself and be ready for me at a certain time each morning on whatever page I wanted. any listener who’s even a bit tech inclined might just be laughing into their pillow right now, but trust it was a big deal for me when I figured out how to do it.

Next to my computer, I kept this little suede calendar notebook for where each morning I’d write down the most important things I wanted to focus on for the day – just a short checklist.

Like I’m all for digital these days…but… I don’t know the aspect of physically ticking stuff off a paper notebook feels a bit more legit.

Key tip by the way: don’t go overboard when you’re writing out what you want to do. The bear trap loads of people fall into when they’re first trying to plan out their waking lives is to completely lose their heads and have far too many daily targets or goals. This is from a place of overreaching, being overly ambitious, or optimistic whatever you want to call it. And at the end of the day, they might get most of these tasks done if they’re committed – let’s say 12 out of 16 . I mean, 12 important tasks completed, that should be great yeah? Imagine that. but instead, their minds can only focus on the four remaining tasks that were left unfinished. Ultimately, they haven’t met their target for the day. So for all intents and purposes, they’ve failed. nothing could be more demotivating.

Long story short, don’t go mad with lists and lists of stuff you plan to cram in. Instead, pick three. pick three things – the three most important things you want to get done before bed.

i call this method the daily triad. The rule of three appeals to us a great deal. We like things that come in threes because it’s the smallest number at which a pattern can form. And a trio of tasks is relatively achievable; certainly far more so than 16, provided you set your mind to it. and Of course, if you finish with time to spare, you can always do more things. starting small doesn’t mean holding back. it means giving yourself permission to do the bare minimum if that’s all you can manage on a given morning. It’s always, always better to do baby steps, as opposed to biting off more than you can chew, then being forced to spit it all out.

So where were we? Right yeah, I was planning out the day. after that, I’d turn my attention back to the computer. Now, before email, Zoom Calls, google classroom, calendar anything like that, I’d do a little something called a morning dump. not to be confused with the other type of morning dump that’s important too don’t forget about that. So yeah the way I ‘v heard a morning dump being described is essentially a journaling exercise where you basically write about whatever debris is floating around in your mind. research has shown that people usually have their best ideas when they’re in or just come out of the shower. This is linked to a phenomenon known as diffuse thinking (more on that here).

I’d write whatever i’m feeling; thoughts, ambitions, opinions, anything that pops in my head. i get it all out there. dump it. Doing all that helps me get some of my ideas in order and think with more clarity. often if there’s an event I’m dreading I find that writing it down helps mitigate some of that dread. We make it out to be all big and scary in our head,s but when it’s out in the open we’ll see that stuff is not nearly as bad as overactive imaginations would have us believe.

i’ll be done with the mental detox around quarter past 8 in the morning and be ready to officially start. it’s good practice to do a once over on your calendar before you get started with the day’s work but we were deep in lockdown so I didn’t really have any urgent things save the occasional live class or webinar. Depending on my mood, I’d either go straight to email or start reading something usually related to a project I was doing at the time). I have all of my insights saved onto an app called ‘notion’ – my second brain (more about the second brain in episode 3 so check that out if you haven’t already and it sounds up your street). An example where I’d use notion is if I was reading an article ranking the best podcast hosting site for beginners or some fun blog post about how AI might kill us all within the century, I’d usually save it onto Notion via a chrome extension called Notion web clipper.

And Email has also been incredible thanks to the whole email newsletter thing. I’m to a ton of helpful newsletters – some of my favourites include the one by James Clear -author of Atomic Habits -an amazing read by the way. I go Thomas Franks Tuesday tools and tips to understand basic investing or the latest and greatest web plugins. there’s also Seth Godin’s one (which he somehow manages to send daily for god knows how many years. Since 2020, like 80% of interesting people or things have been brought to my attention via 20% of my email newsletter list. Can’t even lie, would totally recommend opting in. For those of you who are interested, you can sign up for my newsletter, Monday minutes here

Emailing reading, some like personal project stuff. oh, also there was a time where I learnt how to play GO. Go is this two-player strategy board game played with white and black stones as pieces – it’s meant to be like the oldest continuously played board game in the world – came from China around 2 and a half thousand years ago. Go is complex, the number of possible board configurations exceeds the number of atoms in the known universe – roughly 10^170 possible configurations. the number followed by 170 zeros, like come on. So yeah I tried that. Plus, my website was mostly built during the mornings. as was this podcast. I worked on A virtual assistant and face recognition on python. A lot of my most fruitful hours were in the morning. Afternoons and evenings were more for schoolwork or Netflix, assassins creed at one point, Halo, then FIFA the rest of the time. Some guitar and bagpipes were thrown in the mix somewhere.

SO yeah that was pretty much my morning. To be honest, I don’t want to trick you into thinking that this is something I’m able to do day in day out without fail. life is unpredictable. I can’t ever assume that I’ll be free to carry out my routine to the letter each and every morning. You know how I said to avoid setting too many ambitious daily tasks -I said that from the heart- I said it from experience. I’m way too optimistic about deadlines – much to my detriment. that’s why I’m trying to be more intentional about practising what I preach.

As I said, this particular iteration of the routine did survive a long time. it wasn’t so good in the winter months where it was basically too dark and cold to do anything. Yeah, I had to adapt there. But anyone with a routine knows theres no such thing as plain sailing the whole time.

Those who support the idea of having a schedule after you wake up often talk about how some of the world’s most successful people stick to some kind of regimen. Tim Cook, the founder of Apple, wakes up seriously early – Like around 3:30 – 4 in the morning and pretty much gets straight to work. Oprah Winfrey’s morning starts with some meditation. Other’s might like to take a bit of time to themselves and go for a run, or read a book or do a workout – you know if you wake up and choose pain.

Anyhow, the whole morning routine idea has definitely got some dodgy salesman vibes. in fact when I was scrolling webpages researching the topic for this episode, every single google search result is like “Copy the morning routines of highly successful people and be just like them” or “12-morning habits of leaders and high achievers you can try to work your way up”. you know a cynic would call that marketing bs. and I’m not sure I can disagree. I get it, there’s a lot of pride to e had when we copy behaviours of those who are celebrated by society. I guess that’s what generates the massive demand which is then fuelled by 300 million trillion clickbait titles.

In my opinion, morning routines can be a force for good.. but the point where one starts to boast about the fact that they take their tea in the same way as her majesty the queen is the point where i tell them to wake up and smell the coffee.

Elon musk might need to do things in a certain way to make progress on all of his projects simultaneously. But I wouldn’t try too hard to emulate his routine. Why? Cos not your not Elon Musk. I don’t doubt your busy. I believe you when you say that the to-do list doesn’t seem to be smaller. But, hear me out again: you are not Elon Musk. unless you are – in which case, apologies carry on. the objective should be to start the day on your own terms. What you do when you ake up should not be dictated by Forbes or any other lifestyle magazine. By all means, use those sources for inspiration, but ultimately you need to figure out what the hell is best for you.

People also like to ask, do we even need one? And the short answer is no. You do not need a morning routine. But then again, you don’t need a washing machine, you don’t need to listen to music or eat cake See where I’m going with this, simply because you don’t need something doesn’t mean that your life couldn’t be a whole lot better – a whole lot easier otherwise.

The last piece of advice I have s to implement a strategy called the 2-day rule. this is something I first heard about from YouTuber and filmmaker Matt D’avella. Basically its ok to take a break every so often.Its fine to throw the routine out of the window on occasion. as I’ve mentioned, events aren’t always in our control. Things might pop up -or you simply might not be feeling up to it. so fine, take that break. but everyone knows that the key to forming any habit is consistency. This is where the 2-day rule kicks in. If you want to work toward a habit, but still have breaks in between, that’s doable. just try never to miss 2 days in a row or more. You could stick to a routine simply every other day If you want, just don’t skip 2 consecutive days. Same with the morning routine. In an ideal world, external commitments notwithstanding, try follow the two-day rule as best you can.

And remember, the example I gave was totally personal – it was my way of doing things. I neither want nor expect your schedule to look anything like it. Fair enough if it does, but remember your calendar should be tailor-made for you. My routine would be totally irrelevant for someone who works unsocial hours. The important thing is to have a routine – some semblance of control, in whatever shape or form. Be as strict, or relaxed as you like. just take pride in the fact that you’ve got some sort of system – it really works wonders.

SO that’s a lot to think about right. You know what: why don’t you sleep on it?

I’m sure you’ll know exactly what to do, come morning.