Morning routines are a nightmare to night owls, but more so for lazy people who despise getting stuck in a continuous cycle of early morning schedules. Of course, who would want to mess up their good sleep just for the sake of something that seems so trivial?
However, if you would come to think of it, every one of us has a morning routine— though, contrary to what ‘morning routine’ is often perceived, most people don’t have such a productive pattern. The truth is, morning routines are actually simple, and people are the ones who are making it complicated.
There’s no such thing as a standard morning routine. You can develop your own in a manner that will uniquely benefit you in the most advantageous way.
In an interview, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson said that he has been waking up at 3:30 in the morning for quite a lot of years now to have some time with himself while getting his workout done. Dwayne’s early mornings were set for training and exercises. And he was so committed to this early routine to the extent that he had a thought of creating a mobile gym that he could use wherever he was. He said this was his daily anchor.
But…is it really necessary for every people to follow the same habit? Probably not.
The greatest lesson we can learn from the latter story isn’t waking up early when everybody else was still sleeping. It’s how he pertained his routine as his anchor.
The Rock doesn’t actually have much time to spare for himself during the day due to his tight schedule and early mornings are all he has to be alone. By waking up early in the morning, he gains extra time to do what he really wants at his own pace, and this anchor is what gives him fuel to get through the day with enthusiasm.
Designing your morning routine means having something to base your personal day on.
Have you ever had important matters to attend to at 6 in the evening and ended up having your entire day structured around that meeting? You probably ended up stuck doing nothing at 3 pm while waiting for the time to come. This is exactly how anchors feel.
Now, let’s not go far behind our topic. Here are the ways to design your morning routine:
Step 1: Find your anchor
As mentioned earlier, Dwayne has two anchors for his morning routine— working out and having alone time for himself. You also need to find yourself at least once.
Discovering your anchor seems to be a bit difficult, but if you would only look inside your core, you’ll easily recognize the things that make you so fired up. The things that make you feel good.
But if you’re having a hard time finding that something, Tim Ferriss’ book Tools on Titans might help you. The book includes interviews with top performers in different fields of expertise, which was truly a clever way to obtain comparable outputs from people.
Tools on Titan were divided into three parts: the healthy, wealthy, and wise. The questions he asked about the outstanding performers fit into one of these varieties. Going back to The Rock, workout and alone time fits in all of these categories.
First, working out is great for his health. It maintains his physique, which is a big part of his brand, and of course, giving himself alone time allows “rest time” that gives him a stable mental state to handle everything that’s thrown at him after the break of dawn.
In order to find your anchors, it’s a great idea to also look at these categories and find activities that will hit no less than two of them.
There’s not much thinking needed when it comes to health. You could go for a 30-minute walk or run every day, do a home workout, and do any sports. Anything is fine as long as you can get your body nourished and moving.
Once your physique is all well, your mind will eventually follow. There will be mood improvement, and decision-making will become sounder.
As for the wealth category, you could hit this up depending on your financial goals. Although not every person in the world is gifted with the skill to build a business, everyone surely wants a better financial life, so begin building wealth by educating yourself.
Observe people from your field of interest, watch TED Talks, read a lot of books, and listen to various podcasts— there are a lot of knowledge outlets you can learn from.
The ‘wise’ category, on the other hand, is tailored depending on where you are currently standing in life. Do you have many unanswered questions inside your mind? Is there anything that’s bugging you? Are you struggling in some areas of your life? These questions will lead you to the answer to how you can make an anchor out of this category.
Step 2: Pick an hour
Of course, you don’t have to wake up at 3:30 am every day like The Rock. In fact, the necessity to wake up so early in the morning is one of the misconceptions in making a morning routine. You don’t have to get going as soon as the clock hits 5 o’clock in the morning just because some motivational book you’ve read mentioned that rich people wake up during that time.
Essentially, morning routines aren’t all about extremely early morning but rather about having complete control of your time. At the end of the day, real wealth is measured by how much time you have to do whatever it is that you feel like doing.
Still, it is important to keep in mind that the earlier you wake up, the more time you have to cater to your obligations. You won’t need to rush doing anything because you have all the time in the world to spare.
Select an hour by which you have to start working. If your work starts at 8:00 or 9:00 am, start at 6:00 or 7:00 in the morning— always two hours earlier. If you need to get going at 5 o’clock in the morning, then you have to join Dwyane in waking up at 3:30 or even earlier.
There’s truly no correct wake-up time since this should be based on what is required of you.
Step 3: Eat the frog
Obviously, we don’t mean this literally. This is merely a task management technique that’s crucial in designing a morning routine.
Eating the frog means identifying challenging tasks (the frog) and doing them first thing in the morning (eating it). Otherwise, the frog will be the one to devour you, which means you will only wind up procrastinating over it the whole day.
No matter how you don’t want to complete a particular activity, do it anyway. For instance, answering emails that keep on coming, continuing conversations you neglected weeks ago, and every task that comes to mind that makes you anxious. These are the things you should focus on right after your two hours of self-time.
The best time to eat frogs is this time around because you still have the momentum from your anchors, carrying your productivity to maximum levels.
Three simple steps are all it takes to create your ideal morning routine. Just then, put it into practice, and you’ll eventually see how immense the difference it can make to your life.
