There are a lot of morning routines on the internet that sound wonderful in theory.
Wake up at 5 a.m. Exercise. Journal. Meditate. Read. Drink a green smoothie. Plan your day. Somehow do all of this before the rest of your house wakes up.
But most of us don’t need a two-hour morning routine to have a productive day.
We just need a better way to transition into our workday.
When you run your own business, there isn’t always a clear beginning to your workday. You might answer an email while you’re still drinking your coffee. Check Instagram while you’re getting the kids ready for school. Open your computer to do one quick thing and suddenly find yourself responding to whatever feels most urgent.
Before you know it, you’re working – but you never really decided what you were working on.
A good morning routine can change that.
And it doesn’t have to be elaborate.
Its job is simply to help you begin your workday feeling a little calmer, clearer and more intentional about where your attention is going.
A BETTER MORNING ROUTINE
How you begin your day often determines whether you spend it with intention – or simply reacting to whatever comes next.
Give Yourself 15 Minutes Before the Workday Begins
Before you open your inbox, Instagram, Lightroom or whatever usually pulls you immediately into work mode, give yourself 15 minutes.
Grab your coffee, tea or water and sit down.
These 15 minutes don’t necessarily need to be productive.
Think of them as the transition into productivity.
Look at your calendar. Think about what needs your attention. Notice whether you have a full day of sessions, an editing day, appointments scattered throughout the afternoon or a rare stretch of uninterrupted time.
You’re simply figuring out what kind of day you’re walking into before the day starts making decisions for you.
Those few minutes can make a surprisingly big difference.
Instead of opening your computer and reacting to whatever appears first, you’re giving yourself a chance to decide how you want to begin.
Create a Starting Ritual
One of the easiest ways to make a morning routine stick is to make it incredibly simple.
Your routine might look like this:
Make your coffee → sit in the same spot → look at your day → start working.
That’s it.
Over time, those small actions become a signal that your workday is beginning.
You don’t have to wonder what you’re supposed to do every morning because you’ve created a familiar transition into work mode.
But creating a better routine isn’t always about adding something.
Sometimes it’s about looking at what you’re already doing and identifying one habit that isn’t helping you.
Maybe you immediately grab your phone when you wake up.
Maybe you open Instagram while drinking your coffee and suddenly 20 minutes are gone.
Maybe you check your inbox before you’ve even decided what you need to accomplish that day – and now someone else’s request has become your first priority.
Ask yourself:
What am I already doing every morning that makes it harder for me to start my day well?
You don’t necessarily need another habit.
You might just need to remove one.
Build a Morning Routine Around Your Actual Life
Your morning routine needs to work for the life you’re actually living – not the imaginary version of your life where everything goes exactly according to plan.
You don’t need to wake up at 5 a.m.
You don’t need to journal, meditate, exercise, read and have an hour of uninterrupted quiet time before beginning your day.
And your morning routine doesn’t technically have to happen first thing in the morning.
Maybe you’re getting kids ready for school, packing lunches and driving everyone where they need to go before you can even think about work.
Your workday might not begin until 9:00 or 10:00.
That’s okay.
The goal isn’t to create the perfect morning.
The goal is to create a repeatable transition into your workday.
Something simple enough that you can actually do it most days.
Because the routine that works consistently will always be more useful than the perfect routine you can only maintain for a week.
Try This Tomorrow Morning
Tomorrow, give yourself 15 minutes before you start working.
Pour your coffee.
Stay out of your inbox.
Don’t open Instagram.
Look at the day ahead.
Think about what needs your attention and decide how you want to start.
That’s enough to begin.
You don’t need to overhaul your entire schedule or suddenly become the most productive version of yourself. You just need to create a little space between starting your morning and starting your workday.
And once you’ve created that space, the next question is: What actually deserves your attention today?
That’s where having a simple system can help. I use two lists to separate the things that need to get done from the things I want to keep moving forward in my business.
If you often sit down to work with a long list and aren’t sure where to start, read Does Your Business Have a Running List? How to Prioritize Your Business To-Do List next. I’ll walk you through the simple system I use to decide what needs my attention today without losing sight of the bigger things I want to accomplish.
