The power of morning routines

How changing my morning routine helped improve my mood and productivity (and how it's way easier than you think!)

Remember when everyone used to be obsessed with every successful person’s morning routine? 4am wake up… do 100 bicep curls, 100 sit ups and run 10km while listening to an audio book. Sounds like absolute hell.

So why am I writing this post? It wasn’t until I read Jay Shetty’s ‘Think Like a Monk’ that I became convinced that I needed to change my morning routine. Since then, it’s dramatically improved my mood and productivity. The best about it? I still wake up at a reasonable time (7am when I was working, 8:30am now… because I can 🤭).

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Seriously, your morning matters

I used to wake up at the last possible moment before work. If I did wake up early, I would take it as an opportunity to go to work early to get some deep work done. You know… to complete my pile of tasks. But, who am I kidding? That pile never ends.

Then, you come home, make dinner, fold laundry, try to sneak some Genshin Impact in before you plop onto your bed, wondering where all of the time went and whether this is how the rest of your life is going to be.

When I first revamped my morning routine, I was burnt out. I had a pretty negative outlook on life. I was tired, always feeling like I never had enough time and my head was always full of thoughts. Making space for myself in the morning has allowed me to reflect and change my mindset altogether.

Even waking 15 minutes earlier and adding one or two new habits can help:

• Improve your mood, and set the tone for the rest of the day. If you start your day rushed, anxious and stressed, then it’s likely that the rest of your day will follow suit. Start your day with gratitude and tranquility, then you’re off to a great start.

• Improve productivity. Adding easy, science-backed habits to your morning routine can help you get more work done, more efficiently (work smarter, not harder!) I won’t be covering this in detail this week, but I’ll link to some useful listen/reads at the bottom.

What can you do with those extra 15 minutes?

Well, it depends. Are you waking up stressed every morning and want to relieve that? Or are you hoping to add a bit of positivity in your life? Or trying to get more work done? For now, just pick the biggest area you want to improve.

The habits I’m about to mention are by no means an exhaustive list, but these are some of the simplest and most effective habits that I still incorporate into my morning routine today.

🧠 Feeling like your brain never rests?

This is for those who always have something on their mind and “would never be able to meditate” (this was me). Pick a task in the morning that you usually do and focus all of your attention on it. This allows you to be present and not worry about the rest of your day. In a world where you can scroll on social media endlessly for hours, you’ll be surprised how long every minute can feel (in a good way) after you try this.

I’ve tried two things:

• Brushing my teeth. Normally, I would be watching YouTube while brushing my teeth. Instead, I decided to focus on each tooth for a few seconds for a couple of minutes, making sure I get every crevice. Yay for mindful mornings and dental hygiene! 

• Going to a cafe and drinking a coffee. Normally, I would get a coffee on the way to work and drink it while checking my calendar or emails. Instead, I got a coffee at a cafe, sat down and focused on the taste, aroma, texture, sights and sounds around me, until I finished the cup. I got a few weird stares on this one, but this was one of my favourite activities. 

Jason Gay @jasongay

There's a guy in this coffee shop sitting at a table, not on his phone, not on a laptop, just drinking coffee, like a psychopath.

💓 Feeling a bit negative?

As soon as you wake up, write 3 things you’re grateful for. Sounds easy. Cliché, even. But do you know how hard it is to be grateful for anything when you feel like crap in the morning?

Some of you probably already do this as part of your evening routine - that’s awesome! However, I moved it to my mornings as I found it more effective to start my day with a positive mindset than go through the day and then trying to think about the positive.

Gratitude journalling isn’t new — it’s in every mental health blog. However, I do think it's undervalued and misunderstood. It’s very easy to just say you practice gratitude but don’t feel the benefits of it. To get the most out of it, I have two pieces of advice:

1. Don’t be lazy. Make sure you elaborate and write down (1) what you’re grateful for (2) why you are grateful for it and add (3) an example. That way, you feel the gratitude and it doesn’t become a chore or mindless habit.

2. The first couple of times might feel fake, but it’ll feel real soon enough. When you’re in a negative mindset, it’s easy to write down “yeah, cool, I’m grateful for my family” every day but not feel it. Soon enough, you’ll notice yourself trying to find things you’re grateful for during the day so that you can write them down the next morning. You’ll surprise yourself with how much you have to be grateful for! 🤩

Writing your gratitude (properly). Also it’s true - my mum is awesome.

⚖️ Feeling like you need to care less about work work-life balance?

Without going deep into the complicated subject of work-life balance, the one thing that helped me focus more on my personal life in the morning was setting personal priorities before work ones. This sounds like a no-brainer. All the productivity books tell you to write your top priority of the day in the morning. I’ve been doing this for years. But I was shocked to realise that every single “top priority” of mine was work-related. No wonder I felt like I dedicated too much energy into work.

So I did a few simple adjustments to this habit I already had:

1. Write down your top priority for the day, one for personal and one for work (make sure the personal one is first!)

2. Write down about how you can dedicate all of your energy to achieving that personal one and not the work one

3. Make sure you complete the personal priority! And once you have, let yourself be okay with however the rest of the day goes.

This tactic isn’t innovative, right? Yet, I found this so empowering because I get to make a conscious choice every morning to prioritise myself over work. To be okay if work doesn’t work out because I managed to tick that personal priority off the list.

Example of daily priorities. Prioritise things you love (like badminton).

An example: my personal morning routine

My morning routine isn’t impressive. I’m not Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Michelle Obama — I am a simple gal trying to make every day a little better. 🫶 I also want to make a couple of things clear:

• I do not adhere to this every day — sometimes I have morning meetings, sometimes I am just tired (or had a late night), sometimes I just can’t be bothered

• It might change day by day — sometimes I want to have a productive day, so I’ll optimise for that; other days, I just want to chill so I’ll optimise for that

My ideal morning routine.

Some things I didn’t mention above about my morning routine:

• I drink coffee 90 minutes after I wake up. Cortisol levels are lowest during this time (and not right after you wake up), so this helps give me a longer productivity boost than if I had it right after I woke up.

• Do the hardest task in the morning. I find that my focus is the highest at this point. Then, I do the easier tasks (meetings, emails, admin) after lunch, since I tend to feel more sluggish after a meal (because I love carbs).

What will you try this week?

Some of you may already have the perfect routine. If so, I’d love to know what you’re doing. Some of you may be just like me and just starting to improve your mornings.

Leave a comment, or reply to this e-mail about something you’re trying to incorporate in your morning routine this week.

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Extra Resources on Morning Routines

🎙 Listen

Maximizing Productivity, Physical & Mental Health with Daily Tools by Huberman Lab | Great neuroscience-based methods to improve your mornings (and the rest of your day!)

Liz Plosser: Becoming a morning person even if you aren’t one and how to create a morning routine that works for you by Jay Shetty | One of the few podcasts that about morning routines by a parent! Recommended one for parents and/or busy mums.

📘 Read

Think Like a Monk by Jay Shetty | The chapter “Routine” goes over morning routines, but recommend this book overall! A lot of the tactics mentioned in this post was inspired from the book.

Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod | Haven’t read this myself, but have seen a few people reference this book.

🎥 Watch

I Did Andrew Huberman Lab’s Routine for 14 Days | If you don’t want to listen to 2 hours of the Huberman Lab podcast… Vagabhi his recommended routine for 14 days.

How to ACTUALLY wake up early: A “Miracle Morning” Routine | Based off the Miracle Morning book, really great video editing and storytelling.

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Sabbatical Highlights (Week 1)

Week 1 is off to a great start! I managed to get a lot of errands done, exercise and rest. A few of my highlights this week:

• 📰 Started this newsletter — something I wanted to do but was too scared to.

• 💨 Started the Airtree Explorers program.

• 💛 Caught up with a lot of people who I haven’t talked to for years, thanks to my sabbatical announcement.

• 🍜 Cooked a lot more. My favourite meal I did this week was biang biang noodles, following this great recipe from Chinese Cooking Demystified.