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Eddie Hood
Whenever I log into YouTube, I see lots of videos on morning routines, and I've always thought that's interesting. Why are we so interested on how people spend their mornings? I think it's because we want to live more effective, more at peace, more grounded lives. And our lives just feel a little chaotic. I got to thinking that it's not necessarily what happens in the routine that makes it effective, but simply the fact that you do it. That being said, I'm going to share with you my morning routine as a reader and a host of the Read well podcast. And maybe something in here will help you to craft your own morning routine. Let's get into it. Welcome to this week's episode of the Read well Podcast. My name is Eddie Hood and I'm your host, where I believe it's more important to read well than to be well read. So grab your favorite book, open up your notes, and let's get ready to learn something fascinating. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the Readwell Podcast. My name is Eddie Hood and I'm the host here. And honestly, I'm just grateful to have you on the show and in the community and a part of my life. I cannot express how much it means that you listen to the show each week, and I'm just so grateful that you're here. Now, we're talking about morning routines today, which I think is interesting. There are books written on this. There are YouTube channels dedicated just to this concept. And I think we're all looking for that hack or that trick to sort of make life work for us. And I came to the realization a little while back that routines are specific to the person. There's not one routine that works for us all. Some people like to wake up at some unearthly hour of the day, call it 4am Other people sleep in until noon, or 1. And they're both just as effective in their own way. Some people like coffee, some people drink tea. It doesn't really matter. What matters is that you've built a system or a routine that not only inspires you to be the very best version of yourself, but gives you a safe, creative space to do what you do best. So let's start with that. What is your current morning routine, and what do you love about it and what do you despise about it? And if you feel like you have absolutely no routine, that the alarm clock goes off and you just run scrambling for the door to try to get to work on time, that's good news as well. That means that today, with a decision, perhaps you can start to craft a routine that makes sense for you. Well, here's what I do. I. I don't know why. As I've gotten older, I'm now 44 years old, for whatever reason, I wake up without an alarm clock. Now, I used to always need an alarm clock. I used to love being in bed and sleeping. But I think just with my life sort of progressing and I've had kids and all of these things, I've just learned to wake up very, very early and naturally. My body opens and wakes up at 6am I set my alarm for 6:30, but my eyes always open at 6am without fail. Even sometimes it's frustrating. But I do love that early morning. Now that's when my day starts. And I always do the same thing. Unless there's a major emergency. I wake up, I get ready as quickly as I can. I try not to spend too much time sort of primping and all those sorts of things because I work by myself most of the time. And I get in the car and I head over to the Readwell podcast headquarters, which is about four miles away from my house. It's not even that far two miles away from my house. But I prefer to come here even on Saturday and Sunday mornings to get my day started. And there's one very specific reason why. It's because I designed this environment to be the most supportive environment for reading and writing. And for me, that is the most effective way to start my day. I have found that if I'm with a book at the very beginning that helps me to set my intention for the day, it also creates a win. I end up sort of having that box checked, that win. Knowing that I started with a book I got my reading in, and I feel like I've sort of put something into my cup that I can use throughout the rest of the day. If I don't start by reading a book, if I wait till noon, which is lunch, or I wait till the evening after I've gotten home all day long, for whatever reason, I feel like I'm running on empty and I'm always a little more haggard, right? So I prefer to start with reading and writing. And I like to come here because it's quiet and all of my books are here, my note taking supplies are here, and so on. So I always start my day that way. And I have this little hourglass I keep on my des. I use an hourglass, but really I've used several versions of an analog timer. I just, I don't like using my Phone. Because the moment I use my phone, I have my phone in my brain. And I really want to sort of log into Facebook and start chatting with all of you guys and respond to YouTube comments and all of that other stuff, which is very important to me, but not during reading time. So I like to leave my phone in the other room. There are several rooms in the headquarters here. I leave my phone in another room, I turn the ringer off and I shut that door. And then I come into my little space, which if you've watched my YouTube channel, that's the room that I read in. I've got my books behind me and there's a nice desk to sit at, and so on. The chair is nice and comfy. I can light a candle if I want, whatever. But most importantly, next to me is my little coffee station where I can make an espresso or do a pour over cup of coffee. It's important though, for me at least to not have coffee immediately. I don't know how accurate it is. You've probably heard of Dr. Andrew Huberman. He's on YouTube and he talks a lot about neuroscience and what have you. He has a very specific set of research around coffee that it's probably not a good thing to have coffee right when you wake up because it messes with your ability to focus and your energy levels and so on. There's a whole lot of science behind it, which I'm not gonna get into, but you can look up adenosine receptors if you want. Anyway, he suggests that we wait at least an hour after waking up and that we try to get some natural light in our eyes. And then after that hour we can have some coffee. So I've trusted what he said in the past and it typically has worked. So I've been doing this and I have found that by waiting an hour coffee, it becomes more of a compliment to my reading session rather than a crutch. I used to have coffee right when I woke up because I was looking forward to that kick of energy. Here we go. And it was weird. I started getting all shaky, like I needed it. And I. I couldn't. I couldn't sort of function without it. And I was like groggy until I had coffee and so on. It was a real mess for me. It took about a week to train my body to not need coffee for the first 60 to 90 minutes. And now by the time I'm ready to have a cup, I'm in good mood, I am focused and I'm somewhat calm. And now the coffee is a warm mug that I can have with me and it's a compliment to my reading session. And yeah, at that point definitely helps the focus carry on and helps me stay engaged with my book. So I try and get at least an hour of reading in first thing in the morning. So that's two turns of my little hourglass. The hourglass is 30 minutes a piece and I always have at least one fiction book going in my life and that's usually what we're reading in book club. But if we're reading non fiction there, then I'll have something else. But I always have a non fiction book and a fiction book. And I do that because I have multiple interests and multiple reasons for reading. Because I need to have a book going for my book club, I'm always adding a new book to my bookstore, edgewaterbookstore.com plus I'm in school and so on, getting a degree in philosophy and a minor in English. They give me lots of things to read. So I've always got a bit of a smattering. Right. I'm okay with that. I used to be the kind of guy that could only read one book at a time. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. If that's you, then fantastic. But I've had to build this sort of skill of reading several books at the same time and it works for me now and I enjoy that. Now when I'm reading, I always like to take notes. Again, this sort of puts me in the intention, the mind space of being thoughtful and processing information at the right rate of speed. If I started my day like speed reading and just trying to get through, say 30 pages as quickly as possible, I feel like that would put me in a rushful state where I would just be anxious and then I would move into my computer work and I would keep that energy up and life would just be chaotic and I'd probably die of a heart attack in the next, I don't know, six months. But by being a slow reader and taking notes and being with that information, it really sets the tone for how I think. And I really, really love that I need that. Because once I put the book away, my normal day starts and people start needing my attention and what have you, I seem to be better at listening to people and being thoughtful about my responses. And I also get to draw from what I read and the notes that I made. And I can usually use that information in my response. You know, hey, I learned this thing this morning. I think it will be helpful at Work or in my family. So I'm really grateful for that study time in the morning. So, yeah, for me, in the morning it's not about reading a book. It's about studying a book and trying to get something that I can glean from it. Now I will carry on that process, like I said, for about an hour. And some mornings I can do longer. I do try to read for about three hours a day, but that's split up throughout the rest of the day. I don't have three hours in the morning just to sit and focus with a book. Life's just too hectic. It is what it is. But I definitely try to get that good hour in now while I'm there. This is a really good opportunity for me to sort of craft a focus routine as well. I wrote a post a few days ago that seemed to do really well on Facebook. In fact, it's the most popular post I've ever had. And I titled it something to the effect of create a focus routine for yourself. And the comment is this, that your focus is not something you either have or don't have. It's something that you earn. You earn your focus over time. And so I really enjoy using this hour to try and work on my skill of focus. And all I mean by that is that when I'm reading, if my focus tends to wander and I start thinking about the day coming up, or I think about the fact that I had a bad night's sleep or whatever it might be, instead of getting mad at myself and just giving up, I forgive myself and I'm kind to myself and say it's okay. And I just bring my attention back to the page and I try to read a little bit slower. What I found is that if my attention wanes, it's usually because I'm trying to read too fast. I'm trying to process that book and get through it, which is normal. I. I often find myself doing that. So I, I go back a paragraph or two and I try to read it even slower until I can absolutely connect with the words on the page. And that is training me to be better at focusing again, setting the intention for the day so that when I'm handed projects in work, I'm able to focus on them more efficiently. Finally, at the end of my routine each morning, I always take what I've learned and I sit and think through my note taking process. And then I write something. Now I write on Facebook. Well, actually I write on my blog every day, which is thereadwellpodcast.com. but then I copy that information to my Facebook account and a few other places, Instagram and so on. And it's that process of writing that really seems to tie up my morning routine for me. The process of writing helps me to think and it forces me to sort of interface with what I just read. By having to put my concept down on paper and think through it, it makes me crystallize those ideas and really sort of engage with them. I would encourage you to try this just for one day. Sit down, do your reading, take some notes as you read, and then see if you can write even a single paragraph on what you read or why it was important. I started doing this about a year and a half ago for just me to try and figure out what I had read for the day. And I was posting it on Facebook and it seemed to do well. And so I've just kept doing it and I. I get a post in almost every day and selfishly, it's definitely been something I do for myself just to get more out of my books. So that's it. That's my routine. It's not a complicated routine. I don't have weird jumping jacks in there or I'm not, you know, drinking a specific tea from the mountains of some random weird place. It's just about showing up each day and trying to be consistent with something I care about. And by starting my day with something I care about, which for me is reading books, taking notes, and trying to apply the idea that makes the rest of my day go well, it helps me to sort of handle the ups and the downs. So for you, I would just say do what you do, but do it every day, right? Commit to something that you love and show up at your desk and do it foreign. Before we wrap up this week, I would love to just read my very first two star review on Apple podcasts. And I actually appreciated this. I'm always very happy and very grateful when I get 5 star reviews. Thank you for taking the time, all of you, regardless of what you rate the podcast as, to write something out because it gives me feedback and I wanted to read this one because it actually meant something to me and it's, it's helpful because I'm trying to get my feet under me as a podcaster and a YouTube creator. But the the review was left by Portal Stone and It was titled eh.do. two stars out of five stars. And this person wrote, I'm considering whether to continue listening to this podcast, recommending Jordan Peterson as one of the top Five list of recommended readings, especially for philosophy, is questionable at best. I'm interested in learning skills to enhance reading, but the hyperbole presented is a bit much. Here's why I liked that and why I've been thinking about it all this week. A couple reasons. When I first started this show, I was reading several books and Jordan Peterson was one. And I really liked it at the time. Now authors change and their ideas change and Jordan Peterson has definitely taken a big shift away from some of the things that I find valuable. And would I change my opinion of that now? Yeah, I would. I absolutely would. But I recorded that a year and a half ago and I can't change what I recorded. That's part of the sort of the fallout of what I do is once I make a book recommendation or something thing, it's sort of on the Internet for life. And my, my comment here is that our community is a living and breathing organization. We're here to grow together. And I don't have everything figured out. Absolutely don't. And I am doing my best to try and grow as a reader just like you are. And so my tastes will change over time and so will yours. And that's the first comment there. The second one is about the hyperbole presented. And all this writer means by that is that sometimes I make statements that are over exaggerated or grand. And I went and thought, do I do that? Yeah, I do. And sometimes that's because I just genuinely love the books that I'm reading and I genuinely love the community that we have. Case in point, I recently made a YouTube video about every book that I had read in 2024, and it was originally titled Every Book I read in 2024 that changed my life. I got a couple comments back of people being like, wow, your life changed 26 times. Like, you know, jab. And I thought, thought, oh man, they're right. I was kind of being hyperbolic there and I shouldn't have put that in the title. But then I thought, no, every one of those books actually did have an impact on me and there are valuable lessons in all of them. That's why I studied them and took notes on them. And so it's a challenge, right? My comment to you in covering all of this is that my, my mission here at the Readable Podcast is to do my very best to bring you the best books and to bring you books that will challenge you and make you think and give you a safe space to slow down and enjoy the books that you're reading rather than being told by everybody else to read quickly and to get 200 books in this year and to become a machine. So first of all, thank you for that feedback. I hear that I'm always trying to improve, but I'm pushed back a little bit. I'm proud of the hyperbole. I'm proud of the books that I love, and I'm proud to say that I love them. Okay, last but not least, it's a quick update in the community itself I couldn't resist. I got these really sort of fun multi colored socks at my bookstore I just wanted to tell you about. There's socks that say like book nerd and bookworm and so on. So if you're interested in getting something warm and cozy for your feet, go check that out@edgewaterbookstore.com and as always, until next time, remember to read slowly, take notes, and apply the ideas. Thanks for listening. I'll see you next week. If you'd like to take your reading to the next level, then head on over to thereadwellpodcast.com there you'll find daily posts on how to read well. You'll also get access to all of my book notes and tools for becoming a better reader. And as always, don't forget to read slowly, take notes and apply the ideas. Thank you for listening to the Read well podcast.