Benjamin Spall - My Morning Routine: How Successful People Start Every Day Inspired

Have you ever woken up in a panic at 8:00 A.M. , bleary-eyed, with barely enough time to down a cup of coffee and get dressed before you have to get out the door? Have you ever looked at successful people and thought to yourself, What are they doing that Im not? How can I gain greater control of my life, like they have?

For most of our adult livesMichael in Berlin, and Benjamin in Londonour mornings would follow this same pattern: we would roll out of bed and straightaway fall into the trap of checking our phones, email, and any notifications that happened to pop up overnight before rushing out the door for work. The underlying stress of these mindless mornings fed into workdays of fluctuating moods and haphazard productivity. Far from feeling accomplished after a long day of work, we felt exhausted, and not at all excited to repeat the whole process the next day. Does this sound familiar?

The way you spend your morning has an outsized effect on the rest of your day. The choices we make during the first hour or so of our morning determines whether we have productivity and peace of mind for the rest of the day, or whether it will clobber us over the head. Unfortunately for most of us, good days dont happen by accident. Unforeseen events will step forward to challenge your best-laid plans. If you dont dip into your inner reservoirs of energy, focus, and calm first thing, you wont stand a chance. Start your morning with intentionality, and you can then bring these wins with you into the rest of your day.

In the morning, alone in my office without interruption, I can write more in the first couple hours of the day than I can throughout the entire next twelve hours.

NICK BILTON, AUTHOR AND JOURNALIST

Since launching the My Morning Routine website five years ago, we have conducted interviews and extracted data from the morning routines of hundreds of successful individuals around the world. We quickly noticed that more and more of us are waking up to the idea that there is a better way to start the day than rushing through our precious few morning hours. What we discovered as we got deeper into the process of interviewing people about their morning routines is that almost none of the worlds best and brightest leave their mornings to chance. This is not a coincidence!

Alongside the collective wisdom of our growing archive of more than three hundred interviews, this book contains sixty-four morning routine interviews featuring a cast of characters from retired U.S. Army General Stanley McChrystal to three-time Olympic gold medalist Rebecca Soni to the president of Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios, Ed Catmull to the life-changing tidying-upper herself, Japanese organizing consultant Marie Kondo. Well share with you the surprising similarities among these routines, as well as the innovative improvisations many of these individuals made.

Some routines are all about early morning exercise and spartan living; others are more leisurely and self-indulgent. From sleep patterns and dietary preferences to electronics use and workout rituals, well give you a wide range of possible practices to try at home.

The point were making in this book is not that theres one right way to start your day. We want you to experiment until youve formed a morning routine that works for youone that makes you feel awake, alert, physically and mentally healthy, and psyched up to have a great day, even if youre not a morning person, youre a parent of young children, or you have a demanding full-time job that requires you to wake up at the crack of dawn.

The little things we do, day in and day out, impact our growth and shape who we are. In the words of John Lennon: Life is what happens to you while youre busy making other plans. What characterizes us often starts with what we do unconsciouslyand that starts with our morning routine.

Truth be told, its difficult to have a good day without starting your morning with intention. Your mornings are a blank slate, an opportunity to start again. Even if your first action upon waking is simply going to the bathroom, this forms the beginning of a habit stacka series of linked actions. Waking up triggers you to go to the bathroom, which triggers you to brush your teeth, which triggers you to put on your workout clothes, sit down to meditate, or put the kettle on to begin brewing your favorite cup of tea or coffee. Much like a Jenga stack, habit stacks are only as sturdy as their foundational blocks. Starting your day by checking your phone can trigger a less productive series of actions. Whats more, its harder to build a good habit stack from scratch in the afternoon, since our willpower is worn down by the stresses of the day. Were less reactive in the morningas weve not yet spent our whole day making decisionsso we can think more clearly and be proactive about our morning.

Whether youre the chairperson of a Fortune 500 company (you can find the morning routine of the chairman of the Vanguard Group ), or anything in between, having a positive, focused, and calm morning routine can make the difference between achieving your goals and falling short of the mark.

Find a routine that works for you. Do not feel pressured to adjust to other peoples standards of what your morning should look like. Be flexible and know when to pivot to make things as simple as possible for yourself.

SHAKA SENGHOR, LEADING VOICE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM

Your morning routine will and should be adjusted throughout the seasons of your life. After reading this book, you will be in control of these changes; they will be deliberate and in accordance with your deepest values and your changing priorities. We will teach you how to craft the pillars of your morning routine while providing you with ideas and inspiration for what to add to or subtract from it over time.