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You are here: Home / Fitness / How To Fix Your Mornings with a Morning Routine (Plus a Peek Into My Morning Schedule)

How To Fix Your Mornings with a Morning Routine (Plus a Peek Into My Morning Schedule)

July 15, 2015 By Joel Runyon 6 Comments

I have a hate/hate relationship with mornings. It’s not that I love sleeping, I just hate waking up.

I would stay up all night if it meant I didn’t have to spend the next day walking around in a haze and pounding Runa like they sponsor me (speaking of which, anyone know how we can make that happen? It would really help with subsidizing my Runa intake).

That said, I’ve been making a marked effort over the last 2 weeks to implement a routine into my mornings and it’s made a HUGE difference.

In the book, “The Power of Habit,” Charles Duhigg states 40% of your life is completed by habit. Your brain isn’t actively deciding, but is actually choosing actions from the same part of your brain that controls the functions like whether you breathe, pump blood or think.

In a very real way, the habits you form determine, to a large extent, the life you live.

As I’ve mentioned, I’ve started to incorporate a morning routine into my life. Here’s what it’s beginning to look like (I reserve all right to change this at any point in the future). 🙂

photo-1429032021766-c6a53949594fMy Morning Routine

Routine Creation Still in Progress. Feel free to steal/copy/appropriate for your own use however you might like:

7:30am Wake up

7:30am Drink 20oz of water and walk around the block

8:00am Morning Mobility Routine (get this routine here)

8:15am Cold shower

8:30am Morning thoughts / Download

9am – 12am The Most Important Task of the Day

I’ve talked to some people that have 2–3 hour morning routines, and while that might be great for them, it’s not something I’m currently trying to build. However, even just giving myself a short starting routine has helped me out tremendously.

Here are a few ways it’s been helpful to me in real life situations:

Why You Should Have A Morning Routine (and what mine did for me).

Creates Transition Times

The best part about a morning routine is that it allows transition time between different parts of life.

My old routine was:

  1. Wake up to the alarm clock on my phone.
  2. Immediately start checking email on my phone (in bed).
  3. Start working.

That was it. Literally.

I had no time for deciding what I was going to do that day, setting priorities or even just enjoying the morning.

It was just, “Crap, it’s morning – gotta go.”

Yuck.

Not a great way to wake up and not a great way to live either.

Better Clarity

Adding a morning routine also helped me focus more and have better clarity on the things that I wanted to do.

For a long time, I’ve started the week with “what I want to accomplish” and written down what I want to do the next day before I go to bed.

But adding the morning routine gives me a good 30–45 minutes after I wake up to process everything and get my mind focused both on the day and the projects coming up.

It creates a space for my mind to sort of defrag itself and get organized for the day along with me.

Action Biased

One of the side effects of getting more clarity is that it predisposes you to action.

It’s so much easier to actually do stuff when you’ve already decided and are clear on exactly what to do.

You set up the day to run more cleanly and efficiently.

Less Stress

I have a confession: I like stress.

I actually find that the more stressed I am, the better I perform and the more productive I am.

Also, you may or may not be like me in that you tend to be a bit extreme.

So instead of just using stress strategically, 1 productive, stressful session will turn into a series of stressful ones.

That, in as many words, is simply exhausting.

Starting off the morning with a routine allows me to break free from stressors and clears out some blank space.

=====

More Great Stuff About Routines

  • Charles Duhigg’s book “The Power of Habit” is a great read if you get the chance.
  • The study of routines is interesting and you can find the interesting routines of famous people here.
  • James Clear has some fantastic stuff on habits.

====

My morning routine is available in our MoveWell app. Check it out on iTunes here.

====

Do you have a morning routine? What is it & how does it affect your life?

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Filed Under: Fitness

About Joel Runyon

I started IMPOSSIBLE to push myself to try to live a life worth writing about by pushing my limits, living an adventure & telling a great story by doing the impossible. You can get free updates in your inbox via your new favorite newsletter, free fitness training tutorials, and see all my businesses at Impossible X and our philanthropic efforts at Impossible.org

Comments

  1. Ethan Bridges says

    July 16, 2015 at 1:58 am

    Aaahh… The morning routine, which I struggle with myself. LOL on “It’s not that I love sleeping, I just hate waking up.” That’s a good way to put it.

    Thanks for sharing your morning routine.

    You’re among the few people I know who say upfront that they like stress. Sometimes I wonder if I “need” stress, too, and I get confused whether I like it or I’m just looking for an excuse to procrastinate. For one thing, I don’t like cramming, but yes, I still do it from time to time.

    Finding my way, I guess.

    Reply
  2. ageekinjapan says

    July 16, 2015 at 2:49 am

    I would love to know the specifics of “8:30am Morning thoughts / Download”

    thank you!

    Reply
    • Joel Runyon says

      July 16, 2015 at 1:31 pm

      Hey –

      This is a short morning routine I do to “download” my thoughts into a journal. Similar to “morning notes” or something similar.

      I’ll do a follow up on this.

      Reply
      • ageekinjapan says

        August 3, 2015 at 1:36 am

        Thank you!

        Reply
  3. Niels Philbert says

    July 16, 2015 at 11:01 am

    Thank you for sharing Joel. I’m trying to get into designing a morning routine – starting by designing a night time routine 😀

    I don’t see any food before 12am – you run on water alone or do you do some kind of energy input?

    Also it would be great, if you could reflect on the effects of the morning “download” at some point. Thank you for doing the impossible!

    Reply
  4. Kuldeep says

    July 16, 2015 at 4:23 pm

    Hi Joel, I have a bad habit that after brushing my teeth, I need a tea. If I can’t get I cant start my day and can’t go for stool.. Is it bad habit. I don’t eat anything in the morning…. I am veggie, need some suggestion on breakfast menu..

    Reply

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