Use This Simple Morning Routine to Win Your Day by 11 AM

I’m going to piss off the productivity gurus

Photo by Harold Wainwright on Unsplash

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Before we get started….

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Elon Musk morning routines have become all the rage.

My problem is they’re unrealistic and require superhuman brilliance to implement.

Are we really supposed to wake up at 4 AM, take a cold shower, do a cold plunge, engage in deep breathing for 60 minutes, meditate, and stand on one leg for the rest of the morning? I don’t think so.

I prefer simplicity. A routine that powers my day and helps me achieve my big goals without all the hoo-ha nonsense.

Here’s what I do based on research (copy some or all).

Look at your phone as soon as you wake up

Wait, what?

Yep, I told you I’m going to piss off the productivity gurus. When your phone’s alarm starts buzzing, turn it off, look at the time on your phone, then throw the phone at the wall. For the next few hours stay the hell away from your phone.

The phone is a firehose of distractions.

As soon as you touch it your mind is teleported down a rabbit hole that’ll leave you two hours later thinking “what the heck was I supposed to do today?”

The morning is best spent away from the phone, so real productivity can occur.

Wake up earlier than you’d like

Waking up early is a cheat code for life.

Each person is different but I find 6 AM is a good time. It lets me get a headstart on the day. As they say, an hour before 9 AM is worth 3 hours in the afternoon.

One trick I use is to place my phone on the other side of the bedroom. That way when the alarm goes off I have to get out of my warm bed and walk over to shut it up.

In the process there’s no return. I’m awake and my body triggers the usual morning toilet sequence.

Do productive work before 9 AM

If you want to get hard work done it’s often best to do it in the morning.

It’s when you have the most energy and the highest willpower. I use the early morning to do deep work. I also find my creativity starts to ignite around 8 AM.

It’s a great time to tackle those tasks you’ve been putting off because they feel mentally exhausting. You might wonder why it’s good to do your hardest work at the start of the day.

The reason is when you tackle a hard task it gives you a dopamine reward. That feels good so you want more. This process creates automated motivation. If you win in the morning the momentum will carry through to the afternoon.

Pretty soon you’ll become unstoppable. People will think “how the heck does she get so much done and make it look easy?”

In my case, readers often tell me that I’m superhuman and they don’t understand how I can write so much on the internet. Well, it has nothing to do with good genes or being friends with Tony Robbins. No.

My secret weapon is this morning routine you’re reading about right now.

Read something short and interesting

Reading is like a creative spark.

Once you get started the brain comes alive and ideas start to flow. To initiate this process I like to read something short in the morning.

Newsletters are my favorite, because instead of an algorithm shooting me in the head with all sorts of outrage and anger-fuelled headlines, I get to proactively subscribe to what resonates with me.

Newsletters from the likes of Dan Koe, Zach Pogrob, and Ava Bookbear are my favorite. These writers are ten times smarter than me and fill my head with thoughts that challenge my entire existence.

If you don’t like newsletters you can always read one short chapter of a book. Just make sure you kickstart the day with some light reading.

Read on your commute if you have to.

If your morning sucks it’s because you don’t get enough rest

This one’s controversial.

I often hear people say “I’m not a morning person.” Let me be blunt: this is because you didn’t get enough rest. You either go to bed too late or try to do an Elon Musk and get 4 hours sleep while hustling your face off.

One of the biggest morning routine hacks I’ve discovered is to increase sleep.

When I sleep enough it’s not hard to wake up early or have energy in the morning.

Extra sleep is a warm hug for your body. It’ll repay you with some of the most productive moments of your adult life.

Walk for exercise and circadian rhythm

My friend Matt Gray introduced me to the idea of limbic motion.

It occurs when you go for a morning walk. As you get into motion your brain understands it’s time to work, so being productive is easier to do. Walking also creates clarity of thought.

Matt says “clear minds make clear decisions.”

And I’ll go a step further: a key to having productive mornings is getting your circadian rhythm right. This helps align your body clock so your brain knows when it’s time to sleep and when it’s time to be awake.

Going for a morning walk exposes you to natural light and that’s one of the best ways to enhance your circadian rhythm. Sometimes my 104 year old grandmother’s advice still enters my head “walk off your problems and walk yourself into a new day.”

Walks = Power

Binge on coffee if that’s your vibe

I love coffee.

So much so that I used to own a coffee company. On the days when we’d roast beans I’d drink 6-8 cups of coffee to, you know, check the flavor.

There was nothing better than putting my hands into a bucket full of warm coffee beans that’d come right out of the roaster. Don’t get me started on the glorious smell that used to permeate through the office.

Years later I developed a hearing condition called tinnitus. The doctor told me that caffeine makes the problem worse so I had to give up coffee.

I was devastated.

Then I switched to freshly roasted decaf coffee. Now that’s what I like to drink. Many gurus will tell you coffee is the devil’s drug. Maybe.

But coffee has benefits too. Some find that caffeine helps to kickstart their day. Others, like me, find coffee helps relax them and it’s a little slice of heaven in the morning.

The point is the morning shouldn’t be full of robot tasks. You’re allowed to have a good time and enjoy a sneaky latte.

Move your meetings to the afternoon

I once got this advice from my former boss:

Use the morning to make, and the afternoon to manage.

It’s always stuck with me. The morning should be used to set up your day and move the needle on opportunities that progress your life. It shouldn’t be spent prioritizing other people’s tasks while your life goes backward.

One way to do that is to move meetings to the afternoon. Not everyone can do this, obviously, but if you’re able to it's going to increase your productivity. Even a 30-minute meeting can hijack your morning. Think about it.

Before the meeting you experience pre-meeting stress…

• What will you say?

• Are you dressed properly?

• Have you eaten enough?

Then comes the post-meeting stress…

• How did it go?

• What are the action items?

• Geez Joe was such a prick in that meeting

That’s how a 30-minute meeting becomes 2 hours of productivity-killing magic.

In my case, I just stay the hell away from meetings. Most meetings could have been an email. Sorry bosses :)

The morning starts the night before

If your evening is a mess the morning is guaranteed to be bad.

That’s why I’ve spent the last year perfecting my nighttime routine. I ensure I write down my goals at night ready to act on in the morning.

I also empty my brain by writing all the things down that are stuck inside my head. That way I go to bed with an empty mind and can sleep well. And I make sure I go to bed at a reasonable time so I don’t wake up tired.

Evening routines are just as important as morning routines.

Commit a courageous act

This is a new one I’ve added. Being courageous is hard work.

• Asking strangers for money to buy my products

• Requesting accountants to do their work again

• Asking Stripe to lower my credit card processing fees

• Reaching out to strangers for advice or support for my writing

• Lodging complaints with council to stop noisy neighbors destroying my 6 month old daughter’s sleep

None of these are easy, but I find when I commit one of these courageous acts it builds my confidence. The energy boost and confidence I get when I do a courageous act in the morning flows into the rest of the day.

Suddenly I have more courage.

And courage is a superpower when you’re trying to achieve big goals that require help from other people.

The millionaire morning routine idea that changed my life (and can change yours)

The hard truth is many people’s mornings suck because they don’t have a strong why.

There’s no purpose or meaning for what they’re doing, so it makes it difficult to have an empowering morning and feel like doing things.

The solution many millionaires I’ve met have is to find an idea or activity you can obsess over. Maybe it’s a mission. Maybe it’s a cause that serves others. Or maybe, like me, you want to help others use writing to create more opportunities.

Whatever it is, don’t live purposeless. It’s too hard to be a morning person and win the day by 11 AM if you are.

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