Morning Routines for Success
Starting Your Day with Purpose
Hey there! Welcome to another issue of the Minty Analyst newsletter. I want to thank you for joining me on this journey. It means the world to me!
I've been really into raising my productivity and becoming better with time management lately. It's been quite a struggle, especially since our baby boy joined the family.
We already discussed the power of saying no and how important it is to do a digital detox in today's fast-paced information overload reality.
Today, I want to discuss something I've been researching and trying out lately – morning routines.
Taking care of our baby is the best thing in the world (sorry if I am repeating myself, but I guess that's what new fathers do all the time... at least I'm not showing pictures, right?), but it is also the most tiring thing I've ever done, and I've spent 4 years in Big 4 audit! For perspective, I once did 150 overtime hours in a single month (which has 168 working hours), so you get the point.
The most tiring part for me is that it's almost impossible to structure my day (and night), especially in the first 6 months to a year. Our baby turned 3 months recently, and we are in a phase where he might fall asleep at 9 p.m. and sleep till 6 a.m., or he might cry and be fussy till 4 a.m. and then sleep till the afternoon. I know it's a normal phase (sleep regression or something like that) that most babies go through, and it will pass, but it still frustrates me a lot, as I like to have an agenda for each day, and not knowing when my day will start is not fun.
So, I am trying to have a preset morning routine to bring some structure back to my time. Morning might be 6 a.m. or noon, but still, I have been adding more and more structure to the start of my days.
And so far, it's been great. I already see many benefits, and the effort is so little that I wonder why I haven't implemented a morning routine until now.
What is a morning routine?
A morning routine is precisely what it says on the tin: a routine you do in the morning (smart, right?). Many studies support the concept of a consistent morning routine and the health and well-being benefits it brings to your life.
W/hile there are some key components that you can find in most people's morning routines, you need to remember that the essential part of setting up your morning routine is figuring out what works best for you.
Key components of a morning routine
I want to share the things I've tried adding to my morning routine and how these impacted my productivity throughout the day. Some of those I still stick with, and some proved non-sustainable for me. Others were too hard, and some were too boring. So it's really a matter of figuring out what works for you and makes you feel better throughout the rest of the day and sticking with those. But once you find the ones you like, then consistency is key. More on that later. Now, let's dive in.
Good night's sleep
This is the first one, the most well-known one. It's a myth that we need 8 hours of sleep. Some people need 7, and some people need 9. Whatever your number is, you need to figure it out and stick to it. For me, around 7 hours is what it takes to consistently get a 90+ sleep score in my Samsung Health app.
The thing is, I spent much time trying to set my wake-up time, which was the wrong move. I am fully aware that consistently waking up and going to bed is very beneficial and vital. However, with the baby, any consistency regarding when I go to bed became non-existent. So, I opted for another approach.
Instead of trying to be in bed by a particular hour, getting frustrated that I couldn't go to bed early, and now I have to get up in 3 hours and feel groggy the entire day, I switched to a sleep time target. No matter when I go to bed, I try to sleep for at least 6-7 hours. To achieve this, I don't use an alarm clock (unless I have an important meeting before noon, as I don't like risking it). This allows me to wake up naturally (or occasionally via the baby alarm) and feel much better throughout the day.
So, getting a good night's sleep is essential for a great start to every day, but don't try to follow a specific schedule if it doesn't work for your circumstances. Figure out what works for you and stick to it. If you can't stick to the same schedule, at least try to get enough sleep. I believe it's critical.
Me-time before work
Every morning, I allocate some time for myself before I start working. My wife and baby are usually asleep when I get up, so I typically take around 5 minutes to reflect on the previous day. I write down my one amazing takeaway from the previous day or review/edit it if I have done it last night. I also spend a few minutes reviewing my to-do items from the previous day and thinking about how and why I managed (or didn't manage) to complete them.
This one is a bit specific, as you can say that the whole morning routine is me time, but I still prefer to separate this reflection exercise as a separate piece of my morning routine. Give it a try, it's pretty great.
If you are not writing down one takeaway from each day, you should start doing it, and it will completely change your perspective on your life (at least it did for me).
Hydration comes first
Now, this one has made the most significant difference for me in terms of physical well-being. Every morning, when I wake up, the first thing I do (after brushing my teeth) is drinking 1-2 glasses of water.
Building the habit took me a while, but it's been doing wonders for my energy levels and productivity throughout the day. And it makes all the sense in the world. Your body and brain have been dehydrated for 7-8 hours. It makes sense to rehydrate first thing in the morning.
And please, don't leave a glass of water next to your bed so you remember to drink it in the morning. When you pour water into a glass and leave it out, its properties change overnight, and it's not as good as right away. I know of no science here, but I've been taught that since I was a kid, so I firmly believe in it.
Coffee/tea and reading
This one is pretty specific, and I don't see it in people's morning routines that often. It pretty much depends on who you are. If you are a serious coffee drinker like me, it makes perfect sense to take some time to have coffee in the morning. It's one of the most extended pieces of my routine. I make coffee and sit down in front of the computer.
I spend around 30 minutes drinking coffee and reading articles on medium.com or watching YouTube. I try to focus on entertaining topics and derive some form of professional value.
Honestly, that's the most considerable portion of my morning routine (around 30 minutes of approximately 60 minutes total).
Breakfast or not?
I don't eat breakfast. Period. I often try intermittent fasting, although I add a significant volume of milk and honey to my morning coffee. Besides, I am not very hungry in the morning and can easily last till noon. Plus, I don't have the patience to prepare breakfast, and I try to avoid too processed foods.
I know there's a big separation between people pro and against breakfast, so you need to figure this out for yourself. I have noticed that I operate better without breakfast, but plenty of people swear by it.
Self-care time
This can mean many things. Some people consider reading self-care, which I bundle together with my drinking of coffee. The way I define self-care is doing something that improves your well-being and energizes you.
For me, that's a shower. A quick 5-minute shower in the morning is a great way to refresh and energize your body. But what most people don't realize is that it's even more refreshing for your mind. I consider my morning shower to be a form of meditation. It helps me relax and recenter my mind. So, in short, morning showers are probably the one thing I recommend the most.
Positive Affirmations
Here's another controversial one - positive affirmations. There have been studies that have linked positive affirmations with positive outcomes.
I wasn't aware of the concept before doing a summer work and travel program in the US. Ever since I learned about it during a one-week sales training camp in 2008, I've been doing affirmations on and off.
I picked it up a while back, writing 4 specific affirmations in handwriting and placing them on a few places I look towards the most. I have copies on the fridge, my whiteboard, and my reMarkable sleep screen. On average, I read them aloud 4-5 times a day. Every time, I do 5 repetitions.
It's tough to measure the impact these affirmations have on my life, but saying them out loud helps me visualize achieving those goals, and I think this positively affects me.
I don't know, it might be the placebo effect at play, but it still works out in the end, so... give it a try, it might work for you as well.
Working out
This is one many people swear by. I tried being consistent with a workout as part of my morning routine, but I couldn't keep it up for more than a few days.
I had a disk herniation in my lower back in May, so I am currently doing a particular workout program to strengthen the muscles there. It takes almost an hour, so I can't really fit it into my morning routine. I've tried doing it at different times during the day and found that right before dinner works best for me. Currently, I do a workout on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays right before dinner, and it's been working great.
Most people prefer to put the workout in their morning routine, but it just didn't work for me. I'm trying to explain that there's no right or wrong way to structure your morning routine. Mix and match, try out different things, and figure out what works best for you, and, most importantly, what is the structure you can stick to long-term that provides the most value.
Outline tasks for the day
This is another great one. Spend a few minutes to write down your to-do items for the day. I have an excellent hack for this that I learned from Ali Abdaal (if you don't watch his YouTube channel, you should).
Pick the most important task for the day and rephrase it as your daily adventure. This will help you rewire your brain to see this task as something exciting, generating energy rather than draining it. Once you get good at framing your most important task that way, you can experiment with adding one or two side quests.
The way I like to do this is to have my daily adventure be the one task for the day that will make the day a success. So, if I only did this one task, it wasn't a zero day. Then, I'll have the two side quests, one of which will be another important task, and one will be what I call a cheat task. If I don't manage to do the important task, it would usually go as my daily adventure for the next day. The cheat task is not necessary and often not directly work-related, but rather something that would scratch an itch.
For example, I might want to build a micro website where I can add links to interesting articles and then use make.com automation to summarize these articles with ChatGPT. It's not directly moving the needle for my business, but it lets me explore new automation technologies and get better at them. At the same time, it also results in me starting to build a repository of great links.
Stick with the routine
Doing it each morning is the most important part of your morning routine. There's nothing more to say here. Just do it.
You can include pretty much anything you want in a morning routine as long as it benefits you. Of course, you have to be reasonable. For example, adding an hour of Call of Duty to your morning routine doesn't look productive. But that's just me, you do you ;)
Benefits of a morning routine
Now that you hopefully have some ideas about what you can include in your personal morning routine, I want to share the benefits I've seen from mine.
You might get completely different results, but here is what I have experienced over the past few months.
Improved happiness
Having this structured morning routine (even though, for me, with the baby, the start times vary wildly) has really made me feel better about each day I follow through with it. At first, I'd skip some days, but the impact on my happiness levels was so noticeable that I started sticking to it more, and now I rarely skip a day.
There's something special about starting the day with a routine. It gives it a clearer purpose, meaning there are far fewer days where I feel I didn't do anything valuable.
Don't get me wrong, not every day needs to be this fantastic experience at work or some grand adventure. Sometimes, even a day on the couch watching Netflix can be a valuable experience.
Having more days that I deem valuable makes me happier, as simple as that.
Reduced stress
Starting the day with purpose has also dramatically reduced my stress levels. According to my smartwatch, I have gone from slightly orange down to yellow-green on the scale (which means I have some tangible improvement). I don't feel differently, but I have noticed that I spend far less time stressing over things when I go to bed at night (or in the morning if the baby decides).
Before, I used to often spend 30 minutes or so thinking about what I couldn't get done during the day, which tasks I should've done but didn't, when a late client would pay, and a bazillion other things that were either unimportant or are things I have zero control over.
Now, I simply don't. I read my book for some time and then blissfully drift off. So, I can safely say that my stress has been dramatically reduced.
Increased productivity
Last but definitely not least, my productivity is through the roof. Well, at least compared to when the baby first joined the family. Having a morning routine, and especially the structured way I think about planning my daily tasks, has helped me become much more productive and efficient with my time.
And I believe this is my biggest benefit, at least at this stage. Being happier and less stressed is amazing, but my main goal to achieve by having a morning routine was to improve my productivity, which had suffered a lot after becoming a dad.
So, mission successful.
Morning routines always sounded weird to me. I always thought it was something that productivity gurus talk about just to have something to talk about. But, after researching it and trying it out for myself for a few months, I gotta say it has made a massive difference for me.
That's why I recommend everyone does it. Not the one I'm doing, and not the ones people on the internet are saying you should. Find out what works for you. Give yourself a few weeks to test different components before figuring out your final configuration. And as soon as you find something that works, stick with it religiously. And if it stops working, repeat from the top.
This was all for this issue. Leave a comment below or reply to this email to let me know about your experience with morning routines (or anything else).
Thank you to everyone who made it to the end. As always, extra brownie points for those who share this newsletter with a friend (pick the one that deserves it the most). You'd be helping me grow the newsletter and spread value to more people. And it will make me feel validated and special, which also sounds pretty good.
Till next time,
Dobri