How to Create a Meaningful Morning Routine
Morning routines are powerful for getting your body and mind in sync. Depending on the routine you pick for yourself, the benefits of a morning routine might include:
- Starting every day in an intentional manner
- Facilitating creative thought processes
- Releasing undue stress
Those are just a few reasons you should look into developing a morning routine. Tim Ferriss and Tony Robbins, the Big T’s of the self-development world, both have morning routines that are meditation-heavy. Jocko Willink, a retired Navy Seal who now runs several successful businesses, always starts with a workout — at the ungodly hour of 4 AM, might I add.
There are limitless options for what you can do in the morning; the greater question is what you should do.
How to pick your routine?
There are a couple of caveats here.
First, not everybody is a morning person. Even if you’re a night owl, you can still have a morning routine, but it might look drastically different from somebody who does their best work in the morning. Recognizing your optimal work schedule is an important first step because the goal isn’t to be miserable.
Secondly, it’s a common misconception that your routine has to stay the same — it doesn’t. Change it up! The phases of your life differ, so your routine can too. For instance, I’ve done variations of each of the following:
- I used to combine 20-min of yoga with a 30-min workout in the mornings.
- I practiced meditation, journaled, and made coffee.
- I made coffee and wrote my book.
Those were each morning routines that I practiced for extended lengths of time. In general, my routine is basic and not flashy. The idea behind that is to remove or lower barriers of entry. Simply put: making stuff easier to do.
Currently, I get up, down an entire glass of water first thing, then brew some coffee and work on my passion projects. The rest of the day I’m busy with work and fatherhood so working on passion projects first thing gets my creative juices flowing and puts me in a great headspace.
If you’re trying to develop a morning routine but don’t know where to start, my advice would be to keep it simple. By answering this series of questions, you’ll find yourself in a better place to plan, then implement, a morning routine strategy:
- Do you do your best work in the morning?
“Yes” → Sweet. Take full advantage of the morning by waking up early and getting stuff done. If you’re waking up at 7 AM, try 6 AM or, if you’re feeling bold, 5 AM. Pay attention to what makes your body feel best, though.
“No” → That’s okay! Play to your strengths and consider meditation or exercise. You don’t have to do deep work in the morning, some people just aren’t wired that way.
- Do most days feel like a non-stop blur?
“Yes” → Consider adding meditation or some type of spiritual element to your morning. This is to un-focus the mind. This can be easily coupled with journaling (here, my advice is to include practicing gratitude).
“No” → Great! There are still benefits to meditation, so think about incorporating it. But productivity journaling might be more of a fit for your needs. That is being deliberate with your plan for the day (or for your goal) and its execution.
- Are you exercising later in the day consistently?
“Yes” → Awesome, consider leaving out a physical activity. If you definitely want to include something, try stretching (could be yoga) or dynamic warmups.
“No” → consider including a physical workout. It doesn’t have to be long, maybe 15–30 minutes at most. It could be yoga, CrossFit, biking, whatever you want.
Pulling it all together.
Those are some basic Q&A’s to help kickstart ideas for your morning routine. You can take your answers and begin to craft what you think would be the optimal routine. I wouldn’t recommend getting fancy with it — keep your morning routine below five items if you can. I have found I consistently do 2–3 things. Anything beyond that gets harder to maintain.
I mentioned downing a glass of water as part of my routine. Many people make their bed first thing. Items like that require very little time or mental bandwidth; you could probably fit in more if you wanted to, but I would still recommend keeping it simple with 2–3 checkboxes.
The best check on whether or not your morning routine is working for you is whether or not you look forward to it.
As I mentioned earlier, routines can and should change. But give each routine you develop a fair shot. Do not start each day forcing yourself to do something you don’t want to. That being said, it’s a routine. There will be days you don’t look forward to it, feel out of it, or just want to skip. That’s alright as long as it’s not a prolonged feeling. If it is, and you feel that way day-after-day, that’s when to mix it up.
The goal in all of this to prepare yourself for the day. If you’re in the right headspace, you are more likely to be intentional with your time and living each day to the fullest.
