One of the latest Pat Flynn Smart Passive Income podcast episodes was a whole thing about his daily habits and morning routine. Normally I tend to gravitate more towards his bits about blogging and entrepreneurism. But with the big recent changes in my health, I’ve been more open to trying just about anything.
And I’ve got to say – I was glad I did!
I’m not sure I’ve ever really realized how much time I waste in the morning … or the rest of the day for that matter. What if I tried a little harder to “design” better habits? Habits that could help improve my health, relationships, income, blogging, etc?
What I Learned from Pat’s Routine:
Like all of Pat’s podcasts, it was packed with quite a bit of stuff. But the things I really clung to were the parts about he starts off his morning. It’s amazing how much of his routine is pre-conceived; each step deliberately intended to keep progressively improving upon the next.
For example: When he first wakes up, he splashes water on his face to help wake up his senses. Not long after he drinks a glass of water to rehydrate his body and think more clearly. (I actually tried this one myself and believe it or not – it worked pretty well!)
There were plenty of other things like adding in some sort of stretching / meditation routine. Though I often include a quick stretch as part of my regular workout routine, I’m not sure I’ve ever focused on it or made it a priority of my morning.
So this got me wondering … what are some of the things I could be doing in the morning that would help me to improve my day? Or another way to look at it: What are some of the habits I have that really aren’t helping myself to be any better?
For example: In the morning I have a really bad habit of:
- Sleeping in for too long.
- Sluggishly dragging my feet until there’s hardly any time to exercise.
- Checking my work email. What is responding to a bunch of emails before I’ve even hit the road going to accomplish?
- Checking my blogging email too often. What is it that I’m expecting to find? A million dollar deal to buy my blog?
- Checking my affiliate accounts. I’m not sure at all why I do this. No matter how many times I look at them, it’s not going to make me any richer.
Then there’s the biggest time waste of all: Worrying about all the things that could or might happen today at work. Honestly why let anyone have that kind of control over you? I know this is human nature, but honestly it’s such a mental drain trying to come up with rebuttals and arguments for things that haven’t (and probably never will) happen!
And the list could go on and on and on…
While each of these things is relatively tiny and seemingly harmless, together they compound into a monster waste of time! That’s time I could be using to talk/listen to my family, time I could use to produce good content or get actual actionable tasks done for my online business projects, time I could be using to learn something new and simply make my life better for myself!
My New Morning Routine Checklist:
After some reflection, I’ve decided it’s time to put some more thought into the first few actions of my day and manufacture some good habits that will help me start my day off right.
As with everything in my life, my top priorities are always my family and health, followed by things that help further my income (like my job and blog income). So with that in mind, here’s a few of the things I’d like to start trying:
- Wake up on time. I usually try to get up by 5AM. By doing so that gives me 2 hours before I have to leave for work. The key to waking up on time will be to make sure I go to bed the night before at a decent hour and get a full night’s sleep.
- (To borrow from Pat) Immediately after waking up wash my face off and get a nice big drink of water to stimulate the senses and rehydrate.
- Check my blog email by phone. I say by phone because if I do that it’s simply one click. If I check it from our desktop computer, I’ll wind up sitting my butt down in the comfortable computer chair and browsing the Internet for 15 minutes or more (wasting my time). If there are no immediate “deals” that have to be responded to immediately, then don’t check it again all morning.
- Start my daily exercise routine off with some stretching. Stretch for at least 5 minutes. Exercise for at least 30 minutes.
- Eat breakfast. The body needs fuel to function in the morning.
- Talk with everyone in the family at least once before we all leave for school and work.
- In the car ride to work, reflect for a few minutes on what’s important in my life and what my priorities should be.
In addition to my morning routine, follow-up the rest of the day with this:
- During lunch check my blog email once. Again if there are no immediate deals that need responding to, then move on and do something else productive the break.
- On the way home from work listen to a podcast from a website that I respect such as Smart Passive Income, Niche Pursuits, or No Hat Digital. Really try to pick-up on the parts that I can take action on.
- When I get home be sure to give everyone in the house some attention. That might mean listening to my wife, helping the kids with homework, or any number of things I can do to interact with them.
- As the night winds down and the family starts to go to bed, get to work on things like interacting with my readers who left comments, working through my “to-do” list, etc.
Ultimately we can’t control how many hours there are in a day. Nor can we simply skimp out on sleep. So as hokey as it sounds, the only thing left to do is evaluate your routine, eliminate the wasteful habits, and try to optimize our windows of opportunity as best we can. But thankfully with a little forethought and discipline, this is something we should be able to accomplish that will pay off in dividends for time to come.
Readers – What are some of the things that are on your morning routine checklist? How do you optimize your habits to make sure your day goes right?
Featured Image courtesy of Nicholas A. Tonelli | Flickr
I am pretty happy with my routine, but I hope to work exercise in in the mornings once it warms up a little. I would much rather get a workout in before the day starts then try to make it happen after work or after the kids go to bed. It becomes much more unlikely as the day goes on.
That’s precisely why I work out in the morning. I used to try to do it at night, and I had a 99% failure rate! 🙁
I’m fairly happy with my routine – though my exercise usually comes later in the morning or early afternoon as a way to break up the day and maximize time before the kids get up. I usually have a list I’m working off of – both a daily list and one for the week to keep me on task and order by priority to keep me on track. I could not agree more on the water…I usually have a 32 oz water bottle downed within an hour of being up and it makes a huge difference for me.
It’s funny that the water thing is so simple and yet so, so very effective. I’m much more awake and alert directly after.
My morning consists of eating breakfast, having at least a glass of water, having a coffee, and checking email to ensure I’m not walking in to any fire drills at work without being prepared. I’ve tried to do the exercise thing in the morning, but my choice of exercise is weightlifting (power lifting movements – squat/bench/deadlift) which I do 4 times a week. I have found I cannot perform the movements to my full potential in the morning on an empty stomach, so therefore I exercise after work and on the weekends (4x a week usually). I do want to wake up earlier to start my day, but working in NYC, no one gets into the office before 9am, so if I were to arrive sooner, no one would ever know!
I did not know that about working in NYC! I’ll have to remember that little tidbit.
I’ve recently introduced a 45 minute hardcore writing session early each morning before work. My work are actually OK with me doing this in the office so I leave early, get to work early (missing all the traffic) and have 45 minutes to and hour each morning before work (8am-9am) every day writing a blog post. With 5 hours or so of writing done before I even get the weekend it’s helping me to stay *mega* productive at the moment 🙂
That’s great that you are able to pull this off in the mornings. I tried doing something similar one time (getting to work early and doing a little bit of writing). The problem was that once I got there suddenly everyone else needed me or needed something, and so I got nothing done. Now I try to reserve my writing sessions for the early morning weekends.
These are great ideas. I’m a morning person, so I like to get up and get things done. Giving email a quick glance on the phone is a good idea to stay out of the time suck of checking every website for info that I probably can live without having.
Thanks Janet and welcome to the site. I find that when it comes to email I just waste too much time. My health and fitness are far more important than checking my emails.
My weekday routine could use some updating but I’m not a super early bird. During the weekends I wake up and do some reading. After that I typically get to writing. I need to add some exercise to the agenda.
I do like the idea of reading in the morning. With the way I am I know I feel more productive if I’m writing and creating. But reading is also really good because it gives you new ideas. Every now and again when I find a good book I’ll commit myself to reading for 30 minutes or so in the morning or at night.
What kind of exercise do you do for 30 minutes at home? I find that going to a gym is the only way I can get a really good work-out. I live in Canada, and for so many months of the year (including March and often April), the option of running outside is not always possible. Do you work-out in your home or outside? Great post. I will be more mindful of my mornings : )
There are SO many good exercise routines you can do in under 30 minutes. My little secret: The Comcast OnDemand Fitness section. They’ve got a ton of free videos that cover everything: abs, legs, arms, cardio, etc. I would equate it to watching a P90X video series, but only for free! You can pick a new video every day and never do the same workout twice in a month.
That sounds promising. Thanks!
Believe it or not, YouTube has some great exercise videos. They’re generally 10-20 minutes. And it’s a lot easier to make yourself do a short routine if you’re tired. If you start feeling better during the workout, go through the video again or pick a new one.
Thanks. I’ll check out Youtube. (So simple!)
Morning habits are what make you feel productive. If I do more in the morning it just helps me stay positive throughout the day. I have a few that I do, like take supplement’s with water or a fruit / veggie shake, I also read at least 5 pages of a recent book, once a week I will write a few post concepts / ideas.
I’ve found myself falling into really bad morning habits lately because I’m not a morning person. I’d like to improve this area and develop a better routine similar to yours and Pat’s. I’m going to go listen to that episode. I skipped it but love his other podcasts!
I need to start stretching in the mornings. Well, I need to start stretching in general. But it’s harder to put it off first thing in the morning, theoretically.
I work from home, so I can just roll out of bed and go. But I try to take a shower first. So it’s:
1. Wake up to an alarm
2. Grumble about it
3. Put in my contacts and take a shower (washing my face while in there)
4. Put on the basic face stuff that vanity has demanded
5. Get dressed
6. Go take my meds, filling my water bottle
7. Sit down with my laptop and sip from the water bottle.
I just need to convince myself to push the alarm back 15 minutes so I can do some stretching. Any day now.
I’ve done some of the same things in the past. I’ve since systematized my mornings as much as possible. I get up at the same time every morning and eat breakfast. Then I check my email for anything important that I need to tend to, then I get to work writing.
I used to check my affiliate accounts, but now I only do this once a month. It might only take a few seconds, but it is something that takes me away from doing other more important things. Plus many times I tend to want to change a banner ad or some other time consuming thing that is less important than other items on my list.
My morning routine is that I have a short prayer that I’ll have a fulfilling and productive day. Then, I prepare for work. I normally wake up at 330AM so that I have 1 and a half hours to prepare. I leave at 500 to avoid the rush hour and be at work before 700AM.
Morning routine is vital though i have not effected it, soon am putting it in practice before going to work for proper running of day’s activities. As i have seen it working from those who practice it since it plays part managing time well
With the new addition to the family, my morning routine mostly revolves around him. Even though it’s been several months, it’s a constantly evolving routine.
The thing that keeps me sane is waking up at 5 am which gives me at least 90 minutes to myself to exercise or do whatever I need to do for me. That gives me the clarity to be able to spend the rest of my day doing for others.