Fresh Start Monday #008: Creating a simple yet structured morning routine
Creating an effective morning routine is like running a sports practice.
Practice is a place to grow, but nobody shows up for practice the next day if your players run too many 40-yard sprints.
Players get bored if a practice is disorganized, unfocused, and has too much talking.
Be your own coach. What's fun and keeps you coming back? How are you growing? What's the structure?
Positive results come through patient repetition.
Since I've always woken up shortly before work, I've never had a consistent morning routine. This month has allowed me to play with my morning routine in a new environment in Boulder, CO.
The Warm Up
Some people wake up feeling refreshed and ready to go. That's not me. I need my eyes to be slowly pried open.
When the alarm goes off, the mission at hand is not to go back to bed. I've placed my alarm clock across the room to force myself up. It's timeless advice that works.
But there are days when the temptation is too strong. If I don’t lay out the sweatpants, jacket, and beanie, I take my morning walk in; I feel like I’m stretching a rubber band before being snapped back into bed.
Getting up, grabbing my phone, snoozing, and laying back down feels like an extension of sleep. Putting on those clothes feels like I've started my day. I don't want to go backward.
The cue to start my day is bundling up.
I do a 20-minute walking loop each morning to reach 2k steps. If I don't go on this stroll, I can look down on my Garmin at 4 pm and see 600 steps. It feels like a head start.
Each team has strengths and weaknesses, and so do we.
I know I can push myself through physical activity.
Where I can't push myself is meditation.
Foundational skills and habits
Every practice, we want to put in reps. What are foundational skills we want to compound over time? Each day is an opportunity to do the same.
When I meditate, it feels like I have one tab open in my brain. I'm more present in my day and my coaching.
Meditation is personally hard for me to stick with. Especially during the pandemic. Research suggests that 20 minutes is the ideal time to sit.
In New Zealand, I had a streak of meditating 90 days in a row. My personal record. Do you know what stopped it? I tried to do it for 20 minutes a day.
When I return from my walk, I go to a ladder that leads to a loft.
The cue to meditate is not sitting, but going up the steps. Once I take a step, there's a 99% chance I meditate. There's nothing up there except a timer and a futon.
This month, I started at 5 min and increased it to 6, 8, and this coming week 10 minutes. If I'm feeling rushed, I give myself permission to sit for 5 minutes or even 1 minute.
The other foundational habit for me is writing. I live in my mind. Writing gives shape to my thoughts. It's a creative outlet that I hope helps others.
A cup of coffee is ingrained into my mornings. It's a reward for meditating. And my best friend for writing.
Sitting down with coffee is my cue to write.
This part of the morning routine doesn't change. It's worked well for me. It's simple.
I move. I meditate. I write.
To recap:
A cue to start my day
A cue to go on a walk
A cue to meditate
A cue to start writing.
There's no to-do list. My phone stays off and in my room.
The Scrimmage
A scrimmage wraps up practice. It's a game-like setting with specific focus points.
In my routine, it's the most important task. This changes daily based on what I wrote in my notebook the night before.
Every day unfolds differently, but waking up early lets me go through the above without distractions.
If there's no structure to practice, players will still get some reps in, they'll scrimmage, but will they build to anything significant?
Will they show up the next day?
Last Week
I woke up at 7:15 am.
I appreciated the small size of the notebook. Past journals with too many prompts felt like too much work. But it's on my nightstand. It takes one minute to write a line. What excuse do I have?
Being specific about what I'm doing the night before has sped up my mornings. I know what I need to do when I finish writing.
Fresh Start Experiment
This week I'm waking up at 7 am.
I've been getting out of bed at max 10 minutes after the first alarm, but the difficulty has been at night. I can't get to fucking bed.
I tried putting my bedtime routine into my calendar. At 10 pm, an alarm goes off. I'm usually lying or sitting with my phone on me, but the alarm alone is not enough to snap me into action.
I need a cue that starts my bedtime routine and something that I relatively want to do.
I bought this tea from Trader Joe's. I've historically not been a tea person, but LA weather has gotten me soft. I seek out warmth at all hours.
When my alarm goes off, I'm making a cup of tea and winding down.
Applying it to your life
How do you create a routine that challenges you and keeps you coming back?
It's important to remember a morning routine is a guideline. Like practice, it's essential to plan out, but don't hold yourself to a minute-by-minute schedule.
The morning routine is the forward progress that builds toward your goals.
Play with it!
What does your morning routine look like? What might you add? Remove?