We’ve often heard about the morning habits and rituals of famous business or political leaders. It is easy to dismiss such things as important for high performers, but not important for everyone. The reality is, we all have a morning routine; some are simply more optimized than others. There are many advantages in a routine which allows time to focus on our daily and long-term goals, set intentions for the day, practice gratitude, and anything else at the top of our priority list. Today, we’ll look at the benefits of a daily routine, look at habits to consider implementing, and I’ll walk you through how a simple routine for just a few moments each day can radically impact your outlook and direction in life.
The most reliable way to incorporate calm into your life is to set aside just a bit of time in which to plan and mentally prepare for the day. We all need time away from obligation in order to think and reset. Going through a simple routine daily will set you up to be focused and in control of your time through the day, rather than being dragged along by the dictates of your schedule.
This routine doesn’t need to be complicated or drawn out; the most important thing is that you take those few moments to calm your thoughts and focus daily. Taking time for yourself is sometimes seen as a luxury, when it’s really a necessity. Having a reliable way to relieve stress and make sure your goals on on track is the only way we can hope to accomplish those goals. It can also be the difference in maintaining your health or overwhelming stress. Simple, deliberate acts like taking a walk, stretching, reading, or journaling relieve stress, help you mentally and physically refocus, and keep you on track with values and goals.
While these practices will certainly benefit you any time of day, the morning is especially helpful because you have clarity from the very start of the day. Before anyone else can ask for your time or attention, you’ve set your intentions and goals for the day, from a calm place of gratitude and ambition. This time you set aside for yourself could happen anytime; different schedules and stages of life open up different pockets of time. For the purposes of this article, however, we will refer to morning routines.
Why Mornings?
- How you begin the day sets the tone for the day. Starting with a clear, focused perspective or feeling rushed and behind from the start largely indicate what sort of day you’ll have. To quote writer Richard Whately, “Lose an hour in the morning, and you will spend the rest of the day looking for it.” The choice between a focused and intentional day, or one where you feel rushed, falling behind, and reactive is entirely yours.
- Often, we have the most control over when we get up, making the morning the easiest place to carve out time.
- Being focused, prepared for the day, and in line with your goals and priorities from the outset means you don’t have to waste time during the day deciding what to focus on or whether you should take on a task or not. You’ve already decided your priorities for the day, and all that’s left is to act in line with them.
- Our willpower and decision-making power are greatest in the morning, and diminish with decisions made over the course of the day. This means that you should tackle those activities which mean most to you and ensure they get done, rather than waiting for later in the day when time may be getting away from you.
- Focusing on short and long-term aspirations daily allows you to change and improve the direction of your life.
- The momentum of making one great choice often leads to another, then another, and another. By starting your day with one great decision, you set yourself up to make great decisions over the rest of the day.
- Routines allow for freedom, as they ensure your most important things are accomplished first, opening up time for other activities or choices.
- We all need time alone to think and reflect. Consider a daily routine your “routine maintenance” for stress relief, goal-setting, calming your thoughts, and gaining clarity.
- “A stitch in time saves nine,” meaning that if you take a timely look at your personal, professional, spiritual, and relational goals and how you are progressing toward them, you can make adjustments in time, saving yourself the trouble of having to repair or backtrack later. You can make changes as you find them necessary, rather than after disaster strikes and demands big changes.
- Setting a routine in which you accomplish certain tasks gives you time back, because you are no longer wasting time deciding what to do and when to do it. You hit the ground running, with intentions and a to-do list for the day, and the motivation and focus to get them done.
Small, but Mighty
Morning routines are powerful, not because of the amount of time they take, but because of the compound effects habits deliver. By going through the same routine every morning, your mind and body take the cues to prepare for focused work. Your routine begins to act as a primer, shifting your mind into a gear ready to think and work hard. This is the same principle behind athletes listening to the same music before every game, or going through a methodical routine as they prepare for their event. The practice of going through the process puts your mind in an elevated state, ready to perform at peak levels.
A routine as simple as waking up, listing a few things your grateful for, and then the three to five most important priorities for the day is a great place to start. This allows you to acknowledge the wonderful people and things in your life, humble yourself, then focus on the day ahead and your plans for it from a place of gratitude and purpose. Keeping the lists short ensures you don’t get bogged down in trying to create an elaborate list, and also provides additional focus of your energy. You can’t focus on twelve things. To prioritize means to choose the task of the highest importance. Culling that to do list forces you to choose your priorities strategically, and allows your mind to begin working on the problems you need to solve that day.
There seems to be a correlation between optimizing your daily routine and performing better in life. Perhaps, with the focus and habit of making sure you accomplish your goals for the day, you begin to set higher goals. Or could it be the opposite – when you have big goals to meet, you need to create a routine in which those goals are possible. Either way, we can see that one influences the other, and draw similar benefits in our own lives.
Examples of successful people who have developed morning practices:
- Prolific writer Benjamin Hardy has a simple morning routine of walking, making a gratitude list, time in prayer, and a to do list, which he credits with getting him into a peak state of performance every morning.
- Best-seller author and speaker Anthony Robbins credits taking an ice bath each morning with spiking his energy levels.
- Novelist Haruki Murakami starts his day by writing for several hours, then running a 10k or swimming 1500 meters every morning.
- American Founding Father Benjamin Franklin famously blocked off his time and started each morning with the question, “What good shall I do this day?”
- Any number of entrepreneurs tout the benefits of getting up early, exercising, and staying away from their phones or email until later in the day.
Focus on results, not vanity metrics.
As with any habit, the direction is the most important factor. Getting up at 4:30am doesn’t automatically make anyone more productive. It doesn’t matter how early you get up if you have zero focus during that time, or don’t consistently do it. The purpose is not to get up early. The purpose is to form habits which enable you to consider your priorities and approach the day in a calm, focused and strategic manner. Therefore, when we are choosing habits to form, we need to ask ourselves “What is the specific result I desire from this habit?” If I want to become a healthier person, I can start by adding walking to a daily routine. If you want to be more humble, you could make a list of things for which you are grateful.
When building habits, starting small is the best long-term solution. You need to build up repetitions, not massive blocks of time. The purpose is to build a system of habits which are automatic, not to become a new person overnight.
What is the smallest step you could take to build the habits you want to have?
This may look like simply waking up ten minutes earlier, and just starting the day with stretching or making a list. Then, as that becomes routine, add in grabbing your journaling or reading. After that becomes routine, add in daily questions or reflections. You are walking in a new direction by building habits. As you progress, you’ll build up the habit, your ability to focus, and your confidence. The only way to progress, though, is to start small and keep taking one step at a time.
An example of a 10-minute focused routine:
- Stretch hips and shoulders (25 seconds for each side, twice, plus transitions): 4 minutes.
- Write gratitude list: 2 minutes.
- To-Do list (top three things): 2 minutes.
- Prayer or meditation: 2 minutes.
You can, of course, always build more time into this routine. This example is simply to show that focusing and repeating habits is something most of us can make time for. We all have 10 minutes.
Practices to get you started
If the most important part of beginning a morning routine is choosing the direction, the second most important factor is speed. A routine is designed to take you where you want to go, efficiently. This takes time and consistency, the key being to build slowly, and purposefully. Every habit should be considered for what value and outcome it will bring to you, and whether that is in line with your goals or not. Below are some practices and ideas to consider implementing into your morning or daily routine.
Stretching first thing in the morning offers many health benefits: moving your body gets the blood flowing, signaling to your brain that it’s time to wake up. I personally enjoy stretching just after waking up to help alleviate sore muscles, and help my mind to focus from the very beginning of the day. Stretching is also linked to lower stress and anxiety levels, and helps with digestion, muscle soreness and posture. The American Heart Association recommends stretching when your muscles are already warm, so stretching right after waking up is a great option. Stretching is recommended as part of a healthy lifestyle; by taking a few minutes to stretch each morning, at the very least you have one session of activity completed every morning.
Journaling your thoughts is a habit everyone can benefit from. Most of us think we have no great or novel ideas due to the fact that we simply don’t make a habit of capturing them in order to revisit or elaborate on them. In order to develop ideas, we need to store them in an easily accessible place. A journaling habit makes this simple and routine. Writing out thoughts and ideas allows us to reflect on our thoughts, put them in order, and to have a record to look back on for our own benefit.
“Writing is, without dispute, the best facilitator for thinking, reading, learning, understanding and generating ideas we have.” –
Sonke Ahrens, “How to Take Smart Notes“
Journaling can bring up all sorts of images for people; thoughts of writing for hours, or jotting down a sentence about your day. The beauty is that keeping a journal can be as simple or involved as you’d like it to be. From writing down a few words over the day, to writing pages about a new idea every morning, the purpose of journaling is to capture your thoughts. Use pen and paper, or a computer, and simply record your thoughts.
Meditation refers to several practices of relaxation, relieving stress, and calming the mind. The Mayo Clinic reports that a meditation practice may even aid with symptoms of certain medical conditions. The common link between these practices is having focused attention, a quiet, comfortable environment, and relaxed breathing. Meditation, whether in the form of prayer, mantra repeatings, or yoga can reduce stress levels and provide introspection; beneficial for starting the day, or during breaks throughout the day.
Walking is another great way to wake up your mind and body, while adding in fitness to your routine. The Mayo Clinic says, “As a general goal, aim for at least 30 minutes of physical activity a day. If you can’t set aside that much time, try several short sessions of activity throughout the day. Any amount of activity is better than none at all.” Walking, for any amount of time, in the morning is an excellent habit to start your day, or as a break during the day.
Staying hydrated is essential for replacing fluids lost through normal, everyday functions. While there are all sorts of dubious claims about the optimal amount or temperature of water to start the day with, one thing is for certain; water is integral to our physical and mental health. Drinking a glass of water first thing in the morning can help you wake up, too. I always like to drink a glass of water before I sit down with my coffee each morning. That way, at the very least, I’ve gotten a glass of water and my morning routine done.
Make a short to-do list and “Eat that Frog“. A piece of wisdom attributed to Mark Twain goes something like this, “If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And If it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.” If you schedule the thing you dread to be tackled first, you start your day off with success, and have the rest of the day to accomplish less draining tasks. Keeping the to-do list short also sets ourselves up for success, and can help keep our progress toward larger goals on track.
Expressing gratitude can help your mental health as well, not only providing focus and humility, but by reducing stress in the body. The Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence writes, that “Not only is gratitude a warm and uplifting way to feel, it benefits the body as well. People who experience gratitude cope better with stress, recover more quickly from illness, and enjoy more robust physical health, including lower blood pressure and better immune function.”
Compounding Consistency
Finally, the optimal morning routine is one aspect of a daily, healthy lifestyle which continues on weekends. Remember our discussion of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs; in order to accomplish more psychological and self-esteem goals, we first to make sure our basic needs of food, sleep, shelter, etc, are all met. This means that you are getting plenty of sleep, eating well, moving daily, then turning your attention to your goals.
Sleep is an important part of any healthy routine. The National Sleep Foundation recommends 7-9 hours of sleep each night, ideally in a dark, cool room. They also recommend sticking to the same sleep schedule over the weekends, as this keeps your body’s rhythms consistent, making it that much easier to get up on Monday mornings.
There is much discussion today about ideal diets and optimal eating times after waking up. It seems, as with most dietary advice, these benefits can vary widely from person to person. For our purposes today, we simply want to make sure we are prioritizing eating real food and not too much, in a healthy, holistic manner. No morning or fitness routine will overcome an unhealthy diet.
As we saw above, many people love to move or workout first thing in the morning, in part because it won’t be affected by the day’s activities, and also because energy levels and willpower are often highest when we first wake up. Fitness, flexibility, and movement are all important aspects of health and incorporating them into a morning routine is a great way to ensure they get done each day. I enjoy the energizing benefits that stretching first thing in the morning gives, and how alert I am after going through the routine.
Like maintaining a consistent sleep schedule, keeping the same morning routine over the weekend helps to build the habit in the beginning and also brings purpose and focus to each day, not just your work days. It’s a helpful exercise to consider which practices and activities to include in this routine; if something seems less meaningful or helpful over the weekend, maybe it’s not a great fit for your routine. Conversely, maintaining your morning routine daily enables a consistent practice of gratitude, journaling, and reflection which will serve you well, regardless of the day.
Conclusion
It doesn’t take dozens of productivity hacks or a dramatic early rising time to carve out pockets of time which center and sharpen your day. Implementing a focused routine composed of practices and habits that get you into a peak state of thought and action is a simple way to help yourself achieve your goals in a calm manner.
Next week, we will break down how habits are formed and the best way to ensure your habits are taking you where you want to go.
