My Mornings Sucked. Turns Out I Was Doing It Wrong.

This is how I figured it out and made them better.

Image by Dan Fador from Pixabay

I used to take a masochistic pride in my morning routine.

It wasn’t complex, but it was based on years of reading about the things I “needed” to do to be productive, successful, “1% better every day.”

1. Wake up and immediately drink a glass of ice-cold water.
2. 15–20 minutes of yoga.
3. 5–10 minutes of meditation
4. Finally get coffee with my “morning pages”, three pages of longhand writing in my journal, just a brain-dump.
5. 30-minutes of personal learning — whatever course I was trying to work through at the time, whether it was drawing pinups or learning java or building a second brain, I’d try to move a little further along in that.
6. 30 minutes of writing — at first fiction, then blog posts, and finally short form articles.
7. A hot (or sometimes cold) shower and performing my ablutions to look as kempt as was required for that particular day.
8. Breakfast while reading the news, or Medium, or sometimes social media, depending on my level of morning willpower.