The Importance of Morning Routines

As a young lad I had no set morning routine.  My alarm would go off and I would lay there trying to figure out what my first move would be. Well, my first move after hitting the snooze button, several times.

I remember it being so hard to wake up early.  SO HARD. It didn’t really matter what hour ‘early’ fell into.  If I needed an alarm it counted as early and it was hard.

In retrospect I may have been slightly traumatized from being woken up early by my father bursting open my bedroom, turning on the lights and hollering loud enough for the neighbors across the meadow to hear, “Rise and shine, big boy.”

Fast-forward to today as a spritely 31 5/6 year old I am much more adept at waking up early.  I routinely have to wake up around 5:40am, or as I would have called it in my younger years, ‘the middle of the blankety-blank night.’

It’s so much easier to wake up now than it was when I was a youth.  Part of this is my body isn’t going through some alien growth puberty thing the other part is I have morning routines.

My morning routine seems simplistic and probably ends up looking similar to most people’s morning routines.  The main difference is I’ve purposely cut out almost every decision I have to make.  This saves me from decision fatigue and keeps me from being paralyzed in bed.

I do my routine in the same order every day.  I don’t have to decide whether I want to get dressed first or make coffee first.  The decision has already been made.

7 Things I do Every Morning to Avoid Decision Fatigue

                                             One.

5:40am- We wake up earlier than we have to- My wife and I have to leave the house by 6:40am everyday.  We don’t decide once our alarm goes off if we want to sleep in until 10 minutes before we have to leave.  We wake up at 5:40am so that we can start our day off relaxed and not rushed.

It’s going to be just as hard to wake up at 5:40am as it will be to wake up at 6:30am.  The difference is whether our day starts off rushed and stressful or relaxed.  People who hate mornings tend to sleep until they are scrambling to make it to work on time.  They haven’t built anything enjoyable into the beginning of their day.  No wonder they hate mornings.

                                             Two.

5:41am- First step is coffee and tea- Every morning when I first wake up a stumble into the kitchen and prepare french press coffee for myself and tea for my wife.  Having this first activity is crucial because I don’t have to think or make a decision. I make coffee.  Every day.  It doesn’t matter what else is going on that day.  My first step is to wake up and make coffee and tea.

                                             Three.

5:50am- Next step is to get back in bed and check my email- The first article I click on everyday is Rockstar Finance.  Rockstar Finance is a website that takes the best blog posts from the Financial Independence community and puts them in one email.  Every weekday they send out an email where they showcase 4 main articles and 5 honorable mention articles.  This here blog has been fortunate enough to included once in the Honorable Mention section and once in the Featured Article section.

Related:

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Life is Short- Spend for Today vs. Save for Tomorrow

                                            Four.

6:20am- I get up and make my wife breakfast- She has to be at work before me and she likes eating breakfast so I usually make her some type of, yup, burrito bowl while she’s getting ready.  I don’t have to think about whether or not I feel like making her breakfast that day.  I just do it.  It’s part of my daily routine.

Twenty minutes is the perfect amount of time for me to be finishing up making her breakfast just when it’s time to leave.  I don’t even have to think about when I should start making her breakfast. 6:20am.

If you’re wondering why I’m not making breakfast for myself as well you can read these posts on Intermittent Fasting.

Related:

Intermittent Fasting for Beginners

A Bunch of Weird Things We’re Doing to Be Healthy

                                              Five.

6:39am- I download Up First– It’s a daily 10-minute podcast going over the days news.  It’s short and it’s just enough news to be in the loop without starting your day feeling entirely depressed.

                                               Six.

6:40am- We get in the car and I take my wife to work- She eats her breakfast while I drive. I drop here off and play Up First.  I don’t even have to decide what I want to listen to on my short commute back from dropping her off.

                                            Seven.

7:00am- I get back home and am ready to start making harder decisions- I’ve now been awake for about an hour and half.  Even at this point I try to keep my decisions as easy as possible. I usually either take a quick shower, read or write a blog article, do a quick workout or get dressed and go to work.  None of those decisions take a lot of brain power and the world won’t end if I choose one or over the other.

Structuring my mornings this way makes my day so much easier.  Each item looks inconsequential but together they start my day off easy and consistent.  The important thing for me, a person who isn’t naturally a morning person, is to eliminate as many decisions from those first couple hours of the day as I can.

Each decision we make takes up brain power and weighs us down slightly.  Even the smallest decisions are like adding another sheet of paper on top of us.  By itself one decision won’t paralyze you but added all together it’s overwhelming and causes you to just want to stay in bed.

I can’t stress enough how much easier it is to roll out of bed when my mind isn’t scrambling trying to figure out my next move.

Additionally, here are 3 things I’ve eliminated from my mornings to make them easier:

1. Weekdays I take my coffee black- I do this because I practice Intermittent Fasting. I don’t sit there and think about whether I want to put cream in my coffee today, and not fast during the morning, or whether I want fast.  If it’s a weekday I drink my coffee black.
2. I don’t eat breakfast- Again, because I’m Intermittent Fasting.  I don’t have to worry about what I’m going to eat for breakfast and sit there trying to decide if I’m hungry enough to cook something or if I just want to eat some yogurt. I don’t eat breakfast on weekdays.  No decision to be made.  Observant readers will notice that I am making breakfast anyway for my wife but I don’t have to decide anything.  She places her order and I stand there while it cooks.
3. I keep my work wardrobe small- This decision is part minimalism and part decision fatigue avoidance.  I only use one pair of work jeans, a couple pairs of work shorts and a handful of work t-shirts.

Related:

5 Amateur Tips You can Use to Keep Your Wardrobe in Check

Granted I’m in the construction industry so I don’t have to look cute and match my outfits.  Obviously, I try to look cute and match but the guys never notice anyway so I don’t put as much emphasis on that anymore.

Not everyone can have their wardrobe be as small or as easy as mine but everyone can downsize their wardrobe.  Decision fatigue is a very real thing and many of us are internally exhausted from making small, insignificant decisions all morning before we even leave the house.

If you don’t already have one I highly recommend finding a morning routine that works for you.

It seems so unimportant but I promise it saves me much unnecessary stress.

Be unwavering with your morning routines.  Plan out the first few minutes with something you will always want to do.  Wake up earlier than you have to so that you aren’t rushed. Eliminate as many small decisions as you can.

That’s my opinion on morning routines.

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