"The first ritual you do during the day is the highest leveraged ritual, by far, because it has the effect of setting the mind and setting the context for the rest of your day."

— Naval Ravikant or was it Eben Pagan? I don’t know, but it’s a great quote to begin today’s episode.

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Script | 398

Hello, and welcome to episode 398 of the Your Time, Your Way Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development, and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein, and I am your host of this show.

Your morning routine is one of the best ways to create a productive day.

If you were to wake up at the very last moment, rush around your home getting ready while trying to sip your hot coffee, and rush out the door to catch the train to work, you’ve started the day in a stressed state, and you’re likely to stay stressed all day.

It’s not a great way to begin the day.

If you were to start the day with a set of routines that you follow every day, two things would happen.

The first is that you have no decisions to make, which preserves your decision-making powers—powers that diminish throughout the day. And the second is that the routine itself allows you to slow down.

However, as with all things good for us, we can take it to extremes, which can create stress in itself.

I remember in 2017, I began doing Robin Sharma’s 5 AM Club. This is where you wake up at 5:00 AM, do twenty minutes of sweaty exercise, twenty minutes of planning, and twenty minutes of learning.

It’s a great routine, but unfortunately for me, in 2018, I began coaching, which meant I was doing calls late at night, significantly reducing the sleep I was getting.

I found myself walking around all day like a zombie.

I decided to stop doing the 5 AM Club routine and develop my own, which I’ve stuck with for seven years now, and I still love my mornings.

And with that said, let me hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question.

This week’s question comes from Teagan. Teagan asks, In my morning routine, I take care of my pets, check my home budgeting app, then have breakfast and coffee while doing my email sort. My daily planning is done the night before. The problem is that I don't want to transition to getting dressed and starting work after doing this routine. It takes me 3 hours or more to get going. I'd like to do some physical activity, but this would make the morning even longer. Do you have any tips on moving more efficiently through the morning?

Hi Teagan, thank you for your question.

I think the simple answer would be to include getting dressed as part of your morning routine. However, before you get there, I think there may be an issue in your routine.

Three hours is too long for a morning routine.

Let me explain. Imagine you had a flight to catch at 7:00 AM. It takes you 90 minutes to get to the airport, and you need to allow 2 hours for check-in and getting to your gate.

That would mean you need to leave your house at 3:30 AM.

If your morning routine takes three hours, you would need to start your day at 12:30 AM. Therefore, dangerously reducing your sleep time.

Most people think of doing their morning routines when everything is normal. Unfortunately, “normal” is not a consistent state of affairs for most of us. It may happen 90% of the time, but when we develop our morning routines, we need to consider the 10% of days when it doesn’t and how we will start the day on those days.

The “perfect” morning routine is a routine you do 100% of the time.

This would be your starting point.

I’ve found that a morning routine of around 45 minutes is realistic. This means that even on days when you need to start your day earlier than usual, there are few excuses you can use not to do your routine.

Although hopefully you won’t need “excuses” for not doing it.

Your morning routine should be something you look forward to doing. It gives you a reason to jump out of bed, not crawl out.

It should be built around things you enjoy doing. To give you an example, my morning routine is:

Wake up and put the kettle on.
Drink a glass of lemon juice water while the kettle is boiling.
Make a pot of Yorkshire Tea.
Wash my face and brush my teeth.
Then, sit down at my desk, with my mug of tea, open my journal and begin writing.
Finally, open my email and clear my inbox.

In total, that takes me about 40 to 50 minutes. It depends on how much I write in my journal.

As I know my routine won’t take any longer than 50 minutes, I can confidently decide when to set my wake-up time.

For example, on a Monday, I have a call at 7:00 am; therefore, I wake up at 6:00 am. Other days, I can wake up at my preferred time of 8:00 am.

Last summer, we needed to leave for the airport at 5:00 am. This meant on that day, I woke up at 4:00 am and was ready to go at 5:00 am.

I don’t include getting dressed in my morning routine. I get dressed as my tea is brewing after I’ve washed my face and brushed my teeth.

The purpose of your morning routine is to mentally prepare you for the day ahead. It’s not to create more stress.

I love writing my journal and that first cup of tea of the day. When my alarm goes off in the morning, it’s often the first thing I think about, and I do jump out of bed—much to Louis’s annoyance—he’s not a morning dog.

Robin Sharma recently posted his “new” four-hour morning routine on YouTube. It’s a superb, inspiring and motivational routine, yet completely impractical for most people.

You don’t need a four-hour morning routine to get the benefits of the morning routine.

Some people love exercise in the morning, others don’t. That doesn’t mean that those who don’t like exercise in the morning miss out.

For a morning routine that works for you, start with what you love doing.

You mentioned your pets. If your pets like to go out in the morning, and it’s something you enjoy doing, then you can build that into your morning routine. However, if it’s just refilling water bowls and giving them breakfast, you could use that as the trigger to start your routine.

The trigger is the first thing you do in the morning.

For me, that’s putting the kettle on; for others, it could be a visit to the bathroom or letting their dog out.

The trigger should be something you automatically do without thinking. This is similar to what James Clear calls “habit stacking”. It’s the first in a series of activities that start the stack.

So how do you transition from your morning routines to the start of your day?

This will depend on whether you work from home or go to an office.

If you work from home, the last activity of your morning routine should automatically transition you.

For example, clearing my email inbox is the last activity of my routine, and it smoothly transitions me into my first task of the day.

Today, that was to write this script.

Now, why do I clear my email first? I protect the first 30 minutes of my day for emergencies or urgent requests. So, today I began at 8:00 am and started writing this script at 9:30 am. 9:30 am is usually when my focus time starts.

If there’s an email that requires an urgent response, I have time to deal with it without it distracting me while I am focusing on my most important work of the day. It clears my head and reassures me there’s nothing more important than doing that first task.

If you work in an office, the last activity in your routine should be leaving for work. You know when you need to leave for work, so you have a reference point you can use to decide when you should be waking up.

The definition of a routine is something that you do consistently, often without thinking. I’ve been doing my morning routines for seven years, and I frequently find myself sitting at my desk writing in my journal, wondering how I got there.

I know I’ve followed my routines. I have a cup of hot tea next to me, and I am dressed. These routines are ingrained into how I begin each day.

One thing I do, though, that may help you, Teagan, is I lay out my clothes before I go to bed. When I wake up, my clothes are there right in front of me—no decision to make. Just put them on and start my day.

Having your clothes laid out ready for y...

The Best Way to Get Consistent With Your Morning Routine