If you’re anything like me, then you’re always searching for the perfect morning routine. Your morning routine sets the tone. It’s the most vital part of your day. It can give you the momentum you need to make the most of it, if it’s done correctly. However, the question always becomes, “What is the perfect morning routine?”.
The answer to that question is…there isn’t one. As people, we’re all wired differently. The morning routine for the psycho who works out at 5 A.M. (guilty), won’t work for the guy who likes to stay up late playing Fortnite and eat flaming hot Cheetos. There’s no such thing as a perfect morning routine!
That being said, there are certain things you can do to make the most of those mornings in order to get your day started off on the right foot. Whether you wake up at 4:00 A.M. or 10:00 A.M., there are 5 important activities that you should always do as part of your morning routine.
1) Put the Phone Down
If there is one thing that is an absolute MUST in your morning routine, it’s to put the phone down. For at least the first hour after you get up, you should not be looking at your phone at all. Checking your phone first thing in the morning can hit you with information overload, leaving you feeling both stressed and overwhelmed.
Tristan Harris, a former Google Design Ethicist and focal point of the Netflix Documentary, The Social Dilemma, writes, “When we wake up in the morning and turn our phone over to see a list of notifications — it frames the experience of “waking up in the morning” around a menu of “all the things I’ve missed since yesterday”’.
In my own experience, I’ve had plenty of days where I’ll wake up and immediately grab my phone. I scroll through Twitter, check Snapchat stories, and dabble in the reels section of Instagram. Then before I know it, it’s been an hour since I woke up and I haven’t even gotten out of bed yet! In order to build that perfect morning routine, keeping the phone face down is a good first step.
2) Get Moving
Exercising first thing in the morning is the one of the most beneficial things you can do for your body. In an article written by Jeanie Lerche Davis on WebMD, she claims that physical activity first thing in the morning can set the tone for the day, improve sleep, and allow you to get it done before the distractions of life come into play.
Speaking from personal experience, I’ve always worked out first thing in the morning for as long as I can remember. In high school, a few of my friends and I used to workout at 5:30 A.M., shower at the gym, and head to school after that. In college, our baseball practices would begin at 4:45 A.M. and lifts would start no later than 8:00 A.M. Now, living in a new city, I still find time to workout first thing in the morning. Monday through Friday, I go to the 5:00 A.M. class at the training facility I workout at.
Even if you’re not a morning person, you should still get your exercise done first thing in the morning. Hopefully, working out is the hardest part of your day both mentally and physically. If you can get it done shortly after waking up, then the hardest part of your day is out of the way and the rest of the day is cake.
3) Drink a Bottle of Water Immediately After Waking Up
If you get the traditional 7-8 hours of sleep, then good on you, you’re prioritizing your health! However, the one thing we do neglect is our ability to stay hydrated. Obviously you can’t drink water while you’re sleeping or wake up periodically to drink water because then you’d be interrupting your sleep. Staying hydrated is key to a healthy body and healthy mind, so why not start off your mornings with some water?
There is scientific research behind this practice. According to Chris Bailey, the author of A Life of Productivity, there are many benefits when it comes to drinking water first thing in the morning. These benefits include firing up your metabolism, quenching your dehydration, and flushing out any toxins your body may have. If you’re interested in diving into the numbers, I highly recommend checking out the article.
For me personally, to streamline this habit, I always fill a water bottle the night before. This way, I can wake up, grab the bottle on my nightstand and get chugging (not literally). So, ditch your coffee first thing in the morning and replace it with a bottle of water!
4) Work on Your Side Hustle
For those of you out there working a traditional 9-5 job, this one is for you. I highly recommend working on your side hustle in the morning for a few reasons. To begin, we naturally lose our energy throughout the day from when we wake up to when we go back to bed. Having peak focus can allow you to work on your passion and be at your most productive when doing so.
Next, if you’re anything like me, you don’t want to be working a 9-5 job until you’re 65 years old. Working on your side hustle can allow you to break free from that cycle. For instance, this blog is my side hustle. I hope to use this blog to eventually make me enough passive income that I can work from anywhere in the world. I want to travel while I’m young and this blog could eventually allow me to do that.
Lastly, your side hustle gives you something to work on and strive for outside of your regular job. Start something that you’re passionate about. If you’re passionate about writing, start a blog. If you’re passionate about video games, start streaming on Twitch. If you’re passionate about ecommerce, start your own ecommerce website.
Becoming well-rounded and working on projects outside of your regular work can open doors that you didn’t even think possible. Just find what you’re passionate about and get out there and do it!
5) Journaling
My 5th and final activity is one that I have much personal experience with. Journaling was, and still is, essential in helping me map out my thoughts about what’s going on in my life. I journal each morning to clear my head. It allows me to be more productive throughout the day when I release all that clutter onto a Word document. During my most recent social media detox, I journaled every single day with my thoughts regarding the experiment. This helped me in creating more clarity for writing my most recent article.
There are tons of benefits to journaling. In an article from HuffPost, they outline those benefits such as boosting memory, enhancing self-discipline, and improving your communication skills. Keeping with the theme of this blog, my favorite benefit that they outline is “Evoking Mindfulness”. We could all afford to be more mindful, and journaling certainly accomplishes that.
Building YOUR Morning Routine
Now that I’ve outlined the 5 activities I incorporate into my morning routine, I hope you’ll give them a shot when crafting your morning routine. If not, no sweat, there are tons of other beneficial practices/activities that can be incorporated. Just make sure that your morning routine works best for you!
If you enjoyed this article, don’t forget to leave a comment down below with your thoughts. Also, if you want to reach out to me personally with any questions, head on over to my contact page to shoot me a message. Stay mindful!
