The Lean Morning Routine
Morning routines are great, but they should be evolutive by design!
Most of you have already heard about morning routines. Backed by science (a bit, at least), adopted by “successful people”, it is a new hype. It gives a sense of consistency to your days and helps you reach your performance peak quicker. It also builds momentum by getting you small wins early morning.
I won’t try to convince you to try it, others can do it better than me. I will rather try to help you get the best out of your morning routine. You should not make the same mistakes I made.
When you first read about morning routines, you feel lost. From 10 minutes to 1 hour and 48 minutes (really?), from drinking a glass of water to having an orgasm, there are thousands of ways to design your morning routine. Everybody seems to have the perfect morning routine and you don’t know which one to choose.
2 years ago, when I first felt the need to have a morning routine, I picked the “best one”, according to an article I read. Did it work? Nope! After this, I tried to design one adapted to my own needs. Guess what… did not work either! The first lesson here is, there is no perfect morning routine. The second lesson is, there is not even a perfect morning routine for you. There is a perfect morning routine for you, today, in your current environment.
The first lesson here is, there is no perfect morning routine. The second lesson is, there is not even a perfect morning routine for you. There is simply a perfect morning routine for you, today, in your current environment.
To design a successful morning routine for you, you have to realize 2 things:
- Everybody is different, and everybody evolves. You are not Tony Robbins, are you? And you are not the same as you were 2 years ago right? So why do you want to have the same routine than others or the same routines than before?
- Everybody lives in a different environment, and your environment can change. You now have children, or you are traveling, or you are living on a boat (it was my case for 2 months last year). Of course, you cannot keep the same morning routine whatever your environment is.
That’s true, you change, and your environment change. You know your life has to adapt. Your morning routine should too.
Introducing the Lean Morning Routine
Most of you may know the Lean Startup by Eric Ries. Wikipedia tells us that this methodology “aims to shorten product development cycles by adopting a combination of business-hypothesis-driven experimentation, iterative product releases, and validated learning.”
A few months ago, it inspired me to continuously improve my morning routine. As I evolve, as my environment evolves, it makes perfect seems for me to make my morning routine continuously evolve. I found the lean methodology to be a great approach and called this process the Lean Morning Routine. Its goal is “to shorten habits development cycles by adopting a combination of well-being-driven experimentation, iterative routine releases, and validated learning.”
Here is how it works!
- Pick 3 items from the following list or imagine them yourself. No less, no more. Make sure there is at least one “physical” item (sport, stretching, etc.) and one “intellectual” item (reading, meditation, etc.). In total, they should not take you more than 20 minutes (remember, you still have to take a shower, get dressed, etc.). Example: Drinking a big glass of water (2 min), meditating (6 min), stretching (6 min).
- Every day, keep track (mentally or on paper) of your feelings for each part of your routine. To keep it simple, choose from good, bad or neutral. Also, ask yourself if your routine was too long or if you wanted more. Do not only take into account your inner feelings but also your environment (ex: did you have time to see your children before they go to school?).
- Every two weeks, reflect on your last morning routines. Was each part of your routine at least mostly good? If not, remove, shorten or adapt it. If one part feels really good, do it 5 more minutes every day. Globally, was your morning routine too long? Was it too short? Remove or add an item to it depending on the answer.
- Continue like this every week. Even when you think you have a great routine, it will evolve after few more months. You change, your environment changes, so your needs change.
A routine is not meant to stay the same, it is meant to evolve. Be aware of this and you will make a great step toward a great morning!
If you want to go deeper, this article is great! I also made a simple tracking sheet to help you keep track of your morning routines.
