The Art of Manliness - #455： How to Create the Perfect Morning Routine

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast how you start

00:00:19.100 something is often how you finish it and that couldn't be truer than for the trajectory of

00:00:22.680 your days when your mornings feel chaotic rushed and fragmented and the rest of your day often

00:00:26.840 does too but when you start off with a centering invigorating morning routine that feeling

00:00:32.000 follows you the rest of the day if you're wanting to improve or simply start your own morning

00:00:35.780 routine then this episode is for you my guest is benjamin spall and he's the co-author of the book

00:00:40.000 my morning routine which shares insights taken from the morning routines of dozens of entrepreneurs

00:00:44.540 leaders and creative folks on today's show benjamin walks us through how to craft the perfect morning

00:00:48.840 routine including how to make time for it in your schedule what activities to include and how a

00:00:53.100 successful morning routine starts with what you do the night before you also discuss how to adjust

00:00:57.320 your morning routine while traveling and when you have kids and along the way benjamin gives us a

00:01:00.960 peek at the morning routines of several influential people to give us some inspiration for our own

00:01:04.800 routines there's lots of actionable advice in this episode on creating a morning routine that works

00:01:08.180 for you and sets you up for a productive day after the show is over make sure to check out our show

00:01:12.460 notes at aom.is slash morning routine where you find links to resources where you delve deeper into

00:01:17.040 this topic and benjamin joins me now via skype all right benjamin spall welcome to the show thanks for

00:01:32.440 having me brett so you got a new book out my morning routine how successful people start every day

00:01:38.300 inspired i think people that's one of the i've noticed like i'm interested i think a lot of people

00:01:43.260 are interested like what do other people do for their morning routine i think it's a voyeuristic

00:01:47.400 part of ourselves so what got you looking into the morning routines of all these influential people

00:01:53.040 well you're exactly right about it being voyeuristic that's something that i the way i think about it

00:01:57.780 myself but the way i came to it was around mid-2012 i was reading the book the power of habit by new

00:02:04.180 york times journalist charles duhick and i was really interested in the idea of building something where we

00:02:09.080 could really celebrate people's habits and kind of find these different habits find these different

00:02:13.960 ways of doing things that could be helpful for people in their daily lives and it was around about

00:02:18.200 the same time that my now co-founder and co-author michael zander got in touch with me and he had the

00:02:23.260 same idea of kind of documenting what people do in the morning so we kind of put this idea together

00:02:28.120 and we created mymorningroutine.com which it's hard to believe nowadays because people write about

00:02:33.620 morning routines all the time but back then morning routines really weren't being spoken about that much

00:02:38.500 so we started publishing one new interview every single week and we've been doing that coming on

00:02:43.800 six years now wow so you interviewed dozens of successful people to find out what they do

00:02:49.180 for the morning routines did you find one common template or principle for how to do a morning routine

00:02:53.760 all right so firstly i would say that there's no right way to start your day there's a lot of advice

00:02:59.100 online that kind of says you have to have to get up at 5 a.m you have to do this you have to do that

00:03:03.780 but to be honest we kind of really like to look at the idea of what works for you

00:03:07.920 so interviewing people about their mornings for so long has shown me that it's possible to have a

00:03:12.900 regular morning routine without being rigid and regimented about it and for us honestly it's all

00:03:18.320 about kind of starting your morning routine with intention and what we found while interviewing people

00:03:23.240 both for the website and for the for the book is that almost none of the world's best and brightest

00:03:27.900 leave their minds to chance and in our view this is clearly not a coincidence all right so they were

00:03:32.880 intentional about it but it it there's a lot of variation that's exactly right they kind of they

00:03:37.900 kind of started out with uh many people when they kind of want to begin their morning routine they

00:03:42.780 they think of what they do and we've had so many people come to us that say they don't actually have

00:03:46.620 a routine whereas in reality if we ask what they do every single day it kind of is there's a rhythm

00:03:51.180 you kind of get up you go to the bathroom you might go to the kitchen and it's just kind of like

00:03:55.640 adding little things into that rhythm so you might want to add kind of meditation or a little bit of

00:03:59.520 working out but when you add things within what you're already doing you can already build on what

00:04:04.060 you have were you a big morning routine guy before you started this project or did this like

00:04:08.760 you know was this a catalyst for you to actually start thinking about your own yeah no i i really

00:04:13.920 wasn't at all i was kind of terrible i would get up kind of at 10 a.m this is back in my university

00:04:18.000 days and then after i after i finished school i would just i was a freelancer so i can't get up at

00:04:23.320 the same time and so is when i started the website it was very much an idea of using this

00:04:28.160 information that we were gathering both from friends and kind of more well-known people as

00:04:31.820 the site went on i was using this information myself to actually improve my own routine and

00:04:36.440 it has improved dramatically and as we say in the book you kind of have to hear the same things many

00:04:41.320 times over to actually get the impact of it so a great example of this is for a long time i kept

00:04:46.760 my phone in my bedroom like right beside my head and i would often wake up and kind of just stare at

00:04:51.780 it looking at twitter looking at email but in reality that's a terrible way to start your day

00:04:55.740 and it took me i'd have to say two to three years of hearing this advice from people we'd interview

00:05:00.940 where they'd say keep your phone in another room and it took me two or three years to actually

00:05:05.500 go through with that so now i keep my phone in my kitchen and it's a great way to actually wake up

00:05:10.760 and kind of be more intentional about your day because you're not immediately grabbing that items

00:05:14.760 first thing all right well let's get into the nitty-gritty of morning routines because this is the fun

00:05:19.260 stuff let's talk about the very first thing you do in the morning which is waking up now you

00:05:23.960 mentioned earlier you see all these blog post articles about if you want to be a millionaire

00:05:28.780 you have to wake up at 5 a.m when you interviewed all these people and these are people who are

00:05:33.480 successful in their respective fields were most of them early risers or was there a lot of variation

00:05:38.120 what time people woke up yeah there was a lot of variation and to be honest you really don't need

00:05:43.200 to be an early riser to have a morning routine and when we refer to morning routines in the book and on

00:05:48.400 the website we're really referencing the time between you waking up and either having to leave your home

00:05:52.900 or transitioning to the next part of your day and a great example of this is if you work a night shift

00:05:57.720 for example your morning routine may start at three or four in the afternoon and that's fine that's kind

00:06:02.640 of when you're waking up the most important thing you can do if you already feel like you don't have

00:06:07.880 that much time in the morning is just to slightly increase the time available to you by getting up five

00:06:12.740 minutes earlier for one whole week so that doesn't mean five minutes a day just for one whole week get up

00:06:17.280 five minutes earlier than usual and then next week add five minutes on top of that and eventually over time

00:06:22.140 you'll kind of reach that point where you're like okay i have enough time for my routine but i'm not

00:06:26.340 feeling overtired and that's a great way to kind of increase that space to allow more in there

00:06:31.060 so what was kind of the average wake-up time for people that you when you interviewed them yeah the

00:06:36.280 average wake-up time i actually have this in the back of the book here we go it was 6 24 a.m so that is

00:06:42.240 still relatively early but it's not kind of like you know 4 a.m or 5 a.m as many articles kind of

00:06:47.200 suggests you should do right and i imagine when you talk to these people their wake-ups times

00:06:52.120 changed based on their you know different stage of life they were in yeah totally we uh we mentioned

00:06:57.800 this along the conclusion as well because it's really important to think when you having a

00:07:02.100 morning routine isn't something that you get to it's not the case of you eventually get there and

00:07:06.080 this is your routine for life it really is something you change over time you just have to make sure

00:07:10.820 you're very deliberate with these changes so for example kind of if you have if you're you know you go from

00:07:16.020 not having kids to having kids you'll go from having kind of a lot of time to yourself in the

00:07:20.560 morning to really not having that much time at all and so your routine is going to dramatically change

00:07:25.000 and for this reason we have a chapter on new parents in the book but you really you do have

00:07:29.600 these changes throughout your lifetime you just have to recognize am i making these changes because

00:07:34.320 it's necessary because in the case of a new child or in the case of a new job are you making these

00:07:38.340 changes because you're kind of falling back into an older rhythm let's talk about extremes on the

00:07:43.640 waking up what was like the earliest that you can remember of someone waking up and then like what

00:07:47.400 was the latest yeah i i i'm sure i'm sure we had it in this i think about 4 a.m was kind of the

00:07:54.300 the average earliest kind of like we would see that relatively often but not all the time and a great

00:08:00.260 example of that was uh stanley mccrystal who's a former u.s army general and he would often get up at

00:08:05.200 4 a.m and he would go for a run and it was very intense morning routine which to be honest i i myself

00:08:09.760 couldn't replicate and i think maybe the latest and this may be on the website not in the book

00:08:14.740 kind of a 10 a.m maybe or even 11 a.m and that was sometimes i think someone we interviewed she

00:08:20.640 just needed a lot of sleep she like personally did about 10 hours of sleep every day so that's

00:08:24.460 why she woke up so late and we also interviewed a singer songwriter who gets up a little bit later

00:08:28.700 when she's on tour so i think that's a good point like i think a lot of people there's this pressure

00:08:32.320 that you have to wake up early not necessarily just do what's good for you right no that's that's

00:08:38.600 that's exactly right and like we we are all different and we do change throughout our lives

00:08:42.400 and if if you really struggle to get up early and if you're just going to be tired throughout

00:08:46.980 your morning routine it's much better to kind of get that sleep in get completely rested before you

00:08:51.340 begin with your day all right so let's talk about right after you wake up what's something

00:08:55.640 that you found a lot of the people interviewed that they did commonly right like immediately

00:08:59.620 after they woke up yeah so the best thing you can do honestly well first of all don't have

00:09:04.580 your phone while you're bad but the first thing you can do is immediately get out of bed and just

00:09:08.500 kind of do the same thing every day so for many of us we get up we go to the bathroom and then

00:09:13.020 what do you do after that so you could go to the kitchen you can meditate you could work out you could

00:09:17.260 even just put on your clothes and go to the gym but the idea is to actually kind of do this same thing

00:09:22.180 every day and we talk about a lot in the book about the importance of keeping these things small

00:09:27.040 and easy to accomplish so if you if you start out and decide okay this week i want to start

00:09:32.020 meditating every single day if you tell yourself i'm going to meditate for half an hour right after

00:09:36.720 waking up you are very quickly going to stop doing this because even after the first day this

00:09:41.080 is going to feel like a lot of time that you're taking away from your morning and potentially even

00:09:44.760 making yourself late for work so we say keep things very short like maybe a five minute meditation

00:09:49.800 a ten minute meditation just kind of that amount of time where it really is easy to get that in

00:09:54.660 and i would say in terms of staying on the wrong track the worst thing you can do is really just

00:10:00.220 kind of checking your email checking twitter checking any website that you want to check

00:10:04.580 first thing in the morning it's just a terrible way to wake up and when we interviewed her for the

00:10:08.840 book ariana huffington told us the big part of her morning routine is what she doesn't do and the main

00:10:14.740 thing she doesn't do is check her phone so it's really important just to kind of be in the mindset

00:10:18.940 of kind of that feeling of calm that brings across from your sleep and not kind of having all the

00:10:24.300 information come into you straight away right away yeah i've noticed whenever i check my phone first

00:10:29.660 thing in the morning like it sets the like it i basically primed the pump for the rest of the day

00:10:34.240 where i'm just gonna be constantly checking social media email etc but like when i don't

00:10:38.500 it sets a stage or a precedent where i don't do that more often like whenever i check my phone first

00:10:43.640 thing i end up being more distracted the other day when i don't i'm more focused yeah totally and

00:10:47.480 it's hard it's addicting like i you know i sometimes wake up and i want to check what's on twitter i

00:10:51.480 kind of i i want to have that little feeling of outrage first thing in the morning but it's really

00:10:55.320 not a it's really it's really not a great way to be yeah increase that cortisol to help you help

00:10:59.560 wake you up exactly but with that said you did interview a lot of people in the book where part

00:11:04.480 of their job is you know keeping on top of what's going on and so they'll have to check email first

00:11:09.200 thing in the morning because they might have you know business going on in asia and they need to

00:11:12.820 know right away and maybe answer that email so they can take care of business yeah no totally it's

00:11:17.940 really it's not a perfect system and like many times if i have an early morning interview or a

00:11:23.160 meeting i do have to check that and i guess there's something there's probably some way around it where

00:11:27.020 if you have an assistant they could text you if something changes so you personally don't have

00:11:29.920 to check it but yeah sometimes you really just have to you know for the sake of your job for the

00:11:34.000 sake of your work you do need to check it another thing that i i liked and i've tried to incorporate

00:11:38.240 this but i haven't been able to do it lately because i've got kids now and so there's a lot going on but

00:11:42.600 you know just getting outside and taking a walk in the morning first thing in the morning

00:11:46.400 it's just so relaxing and rejuvenating and it kind of really sets the tone for the rest of the day

00:11:51.840 yeah we actually we actually look at that idea almost in terms of meditation whereas it isn't a

00:11:56.560 sit-down meditation practice in itself but actually just getting out there in nature is a great way to

00:12:01.020 kind of calm you down and kind of get you ready for the day ahead and you get the blue light right

00:12:05.880 from the rising sun to help wake your body up even more right so exactly it's it's very it's very

00:12:11.220 natural for our bodies to wake up that way so i think one reason why a lot of people want to

00:12:16.080 start morning routines or start getting intentional about their morning routines is they want to be

00:12:20.040 more productive throughout the rest of the day so you talked about some things you can do to be more

00:12:23.940 productive like don't look at your phone right because that will set the stage for you looking

00:12:27.660 at your phone and social media the rest of the day but what are some other things that you found

00:12:30.960 that people do in their morning routine to help them be productive throughout the rest of the day

00:12:34.680 yeah so one thing which kind of came up time and time again is working out and while we have a

00:12:40.160 whole chapter kind of in the book dedicated to folks who work out in the morning we quickly

00:12:43.900 noticed that the main benefit was not necessarily working out in the morning but actually just

00:12:47.960 working out at any time in the day so many people we spoke with including bill mcnab who is the

00:12:53.000 chairman of the vanguard group he works out at lunch and i personally work out at lunch as well

00:12:57.560 and he gets that benefit as well so even though it's very important to actually get that workout in

00:13:02.980 to kind of you know pump the eye and kind of fill fill everything going just actually getting that in at

00:13:07.720 some time of day is a great way to kind of improve the rest of your day and one benefit to doing it in

00:13:13.840 the morning is just making sure you get it in so many people say that if they push it to later in

00:13:19.180 the afternoon later in the evening there's a reasonable chance that work will run over they'll

00:13:22.840 get stuck in meetings and they won't actually be able to do it so that is one reason for doing it

00:13:27.060 in the morning and also working on a side project so many people especially right after meditating

00:13:32.460 they say that a great thing to do is work on a side project and this this book itself was a side

00:13:36.640 project of mine for a long time so actually having that time in the morning to work on something that

00:13:41.500 is outside of your job it's outside of what you do every single day it's a great way to spend that

00:13:45.600 time no that's some good stuff there so i took advantage of that when i was first starting the

00:13:50.140 art of manliness i was i started when i was in law school and you know law school you're there from

00:13:55.840 8 a.m to eight o'clock at night it's basically a full-time job so if i wanted to get work done in i had

00:14:01.240 to do it for like you know i wake up at six and work on the blog for an hour or two and then go to

00:14:06.320 school and that's how i did it for the first year or two yeah no it's a perfect time to actually

00:14:11.160 just get in that work that you really feel that is important to your life because kind of kind of

00:14:16.680 with the working out example when you come home from a long day of your job you're kind of not going

00:14:20.420 to be feeling in the mood to kind of get back in front of a computer again yeah and with the

00:14:24.580 working out i love what i love about the book is that you have these like at the end of each

00:14:27.900 section you have like the reversal section so you kind of flip the switch and like hey maybe you

00:14:32.900 don't have to do this in the morning and with the working out i found for a while i was working

00:14:37.940 out first thing in the morning just so i could get it done but i found that you know i do barbell

00:14:42.820 training and just like when i first thing in the morning i'm super groggy my joints are still creaky

00:14:48.240 my muscles aren't warmed up so it's just really hard my workouts were terrible and then also when i

00:14:52.900 had a terrible workout you know things didn't go according to plan i would just be in a cranky mood

00:14:57.680 for the rest of the day and just unmotivated and distracted thinking about man i should have

00:15:02.700 gotten that right so i finally just switched to after work and it's a lot better i don't have to

00:15:07.940 deal with that anymore yeah no we actually we stole the reversal idea from robert green you know he

00:15:13.200 writes the power books and like those books that are great but yeah the idea was a lot of people when

00:15:18.420 we interviewed them a lot of people were telling us one thing but then you know maybe 10 25 of

00:15:23.820 people will be telling us something entirely different so we kind of wanted to bring that in

00:15:27.480 we wanted to make people feel that we're not just telling you one way to do it which we're saying

00:15:31.560 this is how the majority of people go but if you want to go this way as well that really works we're

00:15:36.280 going to take a quick break for your word from our sponsors and now back to the show well on the idea

00:15:42.180 of on the same theme of productivity did you find a lot of people would kind of create a to-do list or

00:15:47.320 look over their calendar first thing in the morning after they did meditation or working out or was

00:15:51.180 that something they did they did the night before i i would say the majority of people did it the

00:15:55.520 night before and that's also what we recommend is what i personally do and the reason for that is

00:16:00.300 you kind of the night before well maybe not the night before but kind of just as you finish work

00:16:04.420 it's a perfect time to know what you need to be doing the next day as opposed to in the morning

00:16:08.400 where you kind of you know you kind of may have grander ideas of what you can get done that day

00:16:12.560 so definitely kind of before you finish work i personally i i schedule things i make sure like

00:16:17.580 everything's in the calendar for what i'm particularly doing and i also make a to-do list

00:16:21.560 which kind of generally the items near the top of the more important items but sometimes there'll be

00:16:25.680 stuff down there that gets moved up and that is a great way to just it's very simple but it's a

00:16:30.240 great way to just actually make sure you know what's ahead of you even if you don't get it all

00:16:33.900 done it's good to actually know what's coming up all right so that's a good point too to have a good

00:16:37.560 morning routine it also pays to have a good like after the end of work routine or evening routine

00:16:42.520 yes no totally we spoke to many people who actually their evening routines are more impressive than

00:16:48.000 their morning routines and one of the ways in particular that people like to kind of jump on

00:16:52.660 the idea of an evening routine is kind of to lay out their clothes for the next day and this can be

00:16:57.400 done in two different ways so many people if they're working out in the morning they like to lay out their

00:17:01.340 workout clothes and the idea there is you see them in the morning and you're much more likely to

00:17:05.580 actually do it especially if you put the shoes and everything in place you see and you know that that is what

00:17:09.740 you need to do but some people they just decide to put out their regular outfits and the kind of the

00:17:14.360 idea there is to defeat decision fatigue so you know there's many studies about this but generally

00:17:20.080 in the you know in the morning we have a certain amount of decisions we can make a day before we

00:17:24.020 kind of get a little bit groggy and we struggle to kind of make the choices that we know are important

00:17:28.320 to us so when you have your outfit picked at night time it may be a little bit difficult at night to

00:17:33.240 make the decisions but in the morning you kind of don't have to make that decision then

00:17:36.980 and another thing people love to do in the evening is just clean up around their house

00:17:41.700 so some people like i've been this way myself but some people don't really mind it to be too messy

00:17:46.460 but for many of us it's great to actually just make sure the kitchen is clean the general

00:17:50.500 bedroom area is clean so we don't wake up to a mess and i've definitely been in the situation where

00:17:55.200 i've woken up and like the one pan i own is at the bottom of the sink like covered in mess so it's a

00:18:00.580 great way to actually make sure that you have what you need for breakfast and i would say that the

00:18:05.120 biggest kind of game changer to improve your evening routine is just to make sure that you

00:18:09.620 allow enough time for sleep so um many people i speak with if they come up to me and ask me how

00:18:15.020 you know how can they improve their morning routine i will often ask them how many hours of sleep they

00:18:19.780 get typically or the night before and often this number is much lower than i would expect to be five

00:18:24.700 hours maybe even five and a half or six hours and to be honest most of us need between about seven

00:18:29.660 and nine hours of sleep a night and often when i say this i like to really caveat to say just because i say

00:18:34.780 seven and nine hours it doesn't mean that you're a seven hour person you could just as easily be a

00:18:38.560 nine hour person so i personally need about eight hours of sleep a night and if i don't get that i

00:18:43.480 kind of struggle and so that's a great thing to do with your evening if you feel like you have to get

00:18:48.340 up early or you just don't have time in the morning just make sure you get enough sleep especially just

00:18:52.840 before you need to go to bed as that helps you kind of increase the quality of your morning routine

00:18:57.120 the next day gotcha and speaking of like laying your clothes out you even you can interview people

00:19:01.500 where they actually wore their workout clothes to sleep in and so as soon as they woke up

00:19:05.720 they're ready to work out yeah we actually yeah when we spoke with around huffington she she mentioned

00:19:10.720 that she used to do that but she doesn't anymore and i believe the reason was because it kind of put

00:19:15.100 it kind of put her in this weird kind of like working out like productive mindset in bed and she

00:19:20.580 figured it was kind of better to have like a nice night dress or something you know bedtime clothes

00:19:24.480 so yeah i've definitely heard of other people doing that as well and also another benefit of planning your

00:19:29.220 day you know creating that to-do list of important things you're going to do first thing the night

00:19:33.980 before is that if you you know start off your day looking at your email usually your agenda is driven

00:19:38.700 by your email it's like well i gotta answer that email that even then like you spend two hours you

00:19:42.040 know like i haven't got anything done productive right just been answering emails yeah no it's true and

00:19:47.760 for a long time i only started with to-do lists and scheduling about three years ago and up to that point

00:19:52.380 it was exactly that my whole schedule was email as if my email inbox was my to-do list and that that's

00:19:57.600 it's a great way to feel productive and i believe many people still kind of have that system now and

00:20:02.440 it really is a great way to feel like you're doing a lot because you kind of have that goal of you

00:20:06.880 know archiving all your emails and you kind of get there but it's a terrible way to actually work on

00:20:11.340 bigger picture goals to actually have this kind of plan for you know six months out a year out five

00:20:15.940 years out to have those plans in place you kind of really need to think long term and have that

00:20:20.920 schedule that you stick to every single day so you've been mentioning meditation a lot something

00:20:25.720 people do in their morning routine it seems like a lot of people use their morning routine not

00:20:29.360 necessarily to be productive and get stuff done but just to be like actually you know exercise

00:20:33.940 their spirituality be mindful right yeah so we actually we know in the book that even if your

00:20:38.960 idea of kind of a sit down meditation for 20 minutes doesn't work for you you can really learn to find

00:20:44.180 meditative moments in the mundane and generally kind of build in moments of mindfulness throughout your

00:20:48.740 day and there's great ways to do this kind of what you mentioned earlier the uh you know just

00:20:52.320 getting out of the house and walking around that's a great way to kind of feel these moments

00:20:56.160 and also going for a morning run and someone actually we we spoke to for the book he mentioned

00:21:00.500 that every single morning he'll put on his tea kettle so he'll put put water in the kettle he'll put it

00:21:05.040 on and he'll press the switch and then it'll be a few minutes that he'll just sit and about nothing

00:21:10.940 at all and he uses that kind of as a timer to allow him to bring that meditative moment into his

00:21:15.740 morning um but we also in the book we do describe you know typical forms of sit down meditation

00:21:20.400 and many of the people we spoke with kind of write about what they do if you're kind of more into

00:21:24.420 that but personally i've always done well for the last couple years i've been doing a 10 minute

00:21:28.940 meditation uh generally in the morning if i don't get it in in the morning i'll push it to later in

00:21:33.480 the day and it's just such an easy it's such a short amount of time that it's easy to do and i i don't

00:21:39.400 worry about it it's just something that i enjoy and even though i've never really been able to meditate

00:21:44.080 properly per se you know completely empty my mind it's a great way to really sort my tasks for the day

00:21:50.120 and this is always uh prior to uh checking email of course were there any journalers in their morning

00:21:55.080 routines there were there were i think one in particular was ryan holiday he he journals every

00:21:59.960 single morning and for him it's definitely a meditative practice he's kind of writing about

00:22:04.100 what he wants to do for the day and kind of his thoughts uh further out uh but many people did speak

00:22:08.900 about doing morning pages as well which is kind of the same idea it's by uh julia cameron and it's

00:22:13.960 about kind of i think it's quite a lot of pages to be honest but it's like kind of writing out

00:22:17.840 your thoughts for the day and what you want to achieve so i mean we've mentioned all these

00:22:21.460 different things you can do in your morning routine you can get up you're going to take a

00:22:25.660 walk maybe you're going to meditate you're going to possibly maybe look over your to-do list maybe

00:22:30.700 journal maybe do some meditation but i think one thing i've seen in my own life and in the lives of

00:22:36.400 people who try to start a morning routine they want to do so much right they try to cram in a ton

00:22:41.400 so they end up like they try to cram in so much they don't actually can't do their morning routine

00:22:45.880 and they just give up on the concepts how do you any advice there on on not trying to cram so much

00:22:51.460 into your morning routine oh here's like how long should your morning routine last right like what

00:22:56.120 what's the the right length for that yeah so we we really don't give a length to it we often say it's

00:23:01.420 kind of what you can allow and like i mentioned earlier if you feel like it's not enough time then

00:23:05.680 kind of wake up five minutes early and kind of go from there but it really does change for everyone

00:23:10.220 so some people might want a two-hour routine but that might be incredibly extreme for others who might

00:23:14.660 want more of a half hour routine and i think it's very important to just figure out what you want

00:23:19.780 in there rather than figuring out what the main length is and then definitely starting small you

00:23:24.420 know 10 minute meditation 10 minute workout you know stretching routine really just make sure that

00:23:29.140 you get all the elements in there even if it's not for a particularly long amount of time and then

00:23:33.320 if you're really enjoying something if you're really enjoying working out you're really enjoying

00:23:36.840 going for the dream gym then either increase those items at the expense of others or just increase

00:23:41.840 the amount of time of your morning routine in general all right so you don't have to go big

00:23:45.520 with this thing you can just go small no you really don't and like it's definitely when you go for the

00:23:50.120 book you kind of have some extremes i kind of mentioned general mccrystal earlier on like his

00:23:53.720 routine i think lasts for three three and a half maybe even four hours there are extreme examples in

00:23:58.660 there and they're incredibly fun to read but i think they're also they're also a great way of

00:24:02.780 showing you that you can take some elements from people's routines you can take this from this

00:24:06.560 person this from that but you really don't need to go the whole hog with any of them

00:24:09.960 so one thing you also cover the book you mentioned this earlier morning routines with parents

00:24:14.620 because before i had kids i had a pretty awesome morning routine like it was had so much time i

00:24:20.540 could you know journal for 30 minutes i could meditate for a long time i could do this and

00:24:25.380 whatever then i had kids and like the newborn phase is crazy like you there's no routine because

00:24:31.440 like the baby's gonna gotta eat or like it's gotta you know change its diaper so what did you find

00:24:36.360 that people did how do they adjust their morning routines when kids came into the scene yeah so

00:24:42.320 this was a real tough one and we want to kind of want to make make it clear here that we we

00:24:46.680 definitely acknowledge the fact that a morning routine for parents of young kids or parents of

00:24:50.620 any kids to be honest is going to be incredibly different from a morning routine where you do not

00:24:54.580 have kids but that said we do make the point that kids do thrive on having a routine themselves so if

00:25:00.380 you can kind of get this routine as soon as possible and of course you know with a newborn this is

00:25:04.260 tough but as soon as is generally possible if you can kind of bring a routine into their lives it

00:25:08.780 will help you as well and one thing that we really really do advocate if possible is once your kids

00:25:14.800 are on a sleep schedule as much as as much as can be as much as once they're on that is to kind of

00:25:20.000 try to wake up before them and this is tough especially if you've been up half the night with

00:25:23.980 them but when you wake up before them you kind of have this little bit of time and it could just be

00:25:27.940 15 minutes half an hour in which you can kind of do some stuff for yourself before you have to

00:25:32.000 kind of get on with the day and this this is tough this really isn't we're not advocating that this

00:25:36.780 is the best way to do things but it really is kind of the only way to continue on with that routine

00:25:41.280 when you do have young kids in the house so adjust your expectations you're no longer going to have

00:25:45.600 an hour of person of me time you know you might just get 15 minutes and you got to be okay with that

00:25:51.580 i think a gesture of expectations would have been a great subtitle for that chapter yeah

00:25:56.500 right and then when your kids are out of the house you'll get back your hour of me time but then you'll be

00:26:00.480 sad because there's no kids in your house anymore yeah exactly yeah it's it's we we like to point

00:26:05.400 out i think we point this out in the reversal section of the parents chapter is that it is

00:26:09.140 only temporary in a good and bad way like you'll definitely miss it when it's gone but then you

00:26:13.260 know you'll have your me time back so there's definitely a positive there as well okay so another

00:26:17.260 challenge with morning routines is there's a lot of people who travel right or they're yeah

00:26:22.380 traveling right so you go to a different place where you don't have your stuff you don't have your

00:26:25.780 chair to sit in you typically sit in to do whatever you do there so how do you adapt routines

00:26:31.520 or maintain a routine when you're away from home yeah so sticking to our morning routines when we're

00:26:37.580 traveling can almost feel like an impossible task so often we just kind of go with the flow and kind

00:26:42.480 of fall in and out of our regular routines with kind of bringing in these unhealthy habits and this is

00:26:46.700 especially true if you're staying in a hotel but what we write in the book is that you can make your

00:26:51.520 morning routine kind of work for you it might not be exactly the same but one way to do this is to

00:26:56.680 kind of think about how working for example out of a hotel room can actually make you more productive

00:27:01.920 so if you're you know you're at a conference or something you have to spend half an hour just working

00:27:06.420 if you're in a hotel room you kind of don't have any distractions you can't reorganize your desk

00:27:10.860 you can't clean out the fridge you kind of have nothing there that you know many of us like to kind of

00:27:15.780 distract ourselves with so that's one great way to uh get something out of it and another thing to think

00:27:20.740 about when you're going on the trip itself is to kind of be smart about your scheduling so if you

00:27:25.580 know that you sleep well on planes you should try to work to travel overnight so you can wake up

00:27:29.640 refreshed and ready to get on with your morning routine the next day and if like many of us you

00:27:34.080 know that you don't sleep well on flights you could just choose to fly in the evening so you're kind of

00:27:37.620 getting in at night and then you can have that night in the hotel room but definitely the most

00:27:42.900 important thing to think about when you know with regard to your morning routine when traveling is you

00:27:47.080 really shouldn't beat yourself up and it's totally normal for your routine to not be as far and not

00:27:52.280 be as efficient when traveling but this this is tough you just need to allow for these inefficiencies

00:27:56.980 and just know while you're there know you know you're traveling for work you're traveling for a

00:28:00.880 vacation know while you're doing it and kind of just let set that aside and just worry about it when

00:28:05.500 you get home i thought it was really interesting for the extreme travelers people who were traveling all

00:28:09.960 the time they had like different morning routines based on which city they were in right because they go to

00:28:14.640 the cities regularly so they've been able to establish a routine so they know well if i'm in

00:28:18.740 chicago i'm going to go to this place and do this thing before i get going to work if i'm in new york

00:28:24.380 city i do this or that if i'm in dallas i'll do this or that yeah that was pretty fascinating and i

00:28:28.660 totally see how that works if you do have the kind of job where you are in two or three different

00:28:32.660 places quite frequently then you can kind of create real real morning routines in these places but if

00:28:38.700 you're traveling it's kind of more sporadic and kind of more into random destinations and definitely

00:28:42.540 kind of have the idea of what you can do in a hotel room or what you can do in an airbnb or wherever

00:28:47.740 you're staying and kind of just go from there yeah the hotel thing the hotel trick i have found

00:28:52.360 there's i've done this this has like nothing to do with morning routines but when i've had a lot of

00:28:56.260 work and i got to get a lot done i need no distractions i will actually go to a hotel here in town

00:29:01.780 pay a hundred bucks and just work because no one knows where i'm at and i can just i've understood

00:29:08.200 i've just complete distraction free work zone yeah i guess part of it's part of distractions and

00:29:13.520 also the fact that you know you've paid that money and you kind of want you want to get something out

00:29:17.420 of that payment yeah yeah the most extreme version of that i heard there's some guy who he he needed

00:29:22.420 to get a book done and so he bought a plane a round trip ticket to japan and he just wrote the entire

00:29:29.180 time there and then like he as soon as he got to japan he got on the plane back and wrote

00:29:32.980 i think he paid like two thousand dollars but he got the book done oh my god yeah you you would you

00:29:38.580 would want an upgrade for that you would not want to do that in a car right now so those are those

00:29:42.920 are extreme tactics those are one of those things where it's it's just interesting to know about you

00:29:46.580 might not do so yeah you mentioned this about being flexible with your mornings and routines because

00:29:51.020 i think a lot of people think okay i got a morning routine i had to stick to it always for the rest

00:29:55.960 of my life and if i miss it like my day is ruined but you guys said no you shouldn't have that

00:30:01.240 attitude towards it yeah no that's totally right and like we always we have this question at the

00:30:05.860 end that we ask every single interview interviewee both in the book on the website and the question

00:30:10.160 is what happens when you fail to follow your morning routine on any given day and it's interesting

00:30:15.220 because while some say that this messes them up for the entire day the vast majority of people who

00:30:19.520 answer this question say that they they kind of really let it slide and they just make sure that

00:30:23.820 they get back to it the next day and that really is that's kind of like the crux of the book the most

00:30:28.560 important thing to think about is when you have a routine you you you know you can you can do it

00:30:33.400 every single day but do not beat yourself up if you miss a day and i always like bring up the example

00:30:38.460 of uh jerry seinfeld he had this example of when he when he's writing jokes he has this big wall calendar

00:30:44.000 and every single day that he writes a joke he'll put a big red x on that day he calls it a chain and

00:30:50.440 the point of the big red x is to say that he wrote a joke that day and then he says your main goal

00:30:55.480 now is to not break that chain so just to make sure you get a big red x in the day every single day

00:30:59.960 and while this is a great idea it's a really great way to make sure you get your writing done you get

00:31:04.640 your work done whatever you want to get done it's terrible if you miss a day and you kind of feel

00:31:08.980 like everything has gone wrong and you can't continue anymore so the point of what we really

00:31:13.240 like to make in the book is that just because you miss a day or even if you miss two or three days

00:31:17.860 don't worry about it like don't aim don't aim for that to be your goal but if it happens if you

00:31:22.480 mess up if for some reason you know your kid gets sick or just something happens don't worry

00:31:26.680 about it and just aim to get back to it the next day uh how has your morning routine changed since

00:31:31.280 you've you know after completing this book and working on the site for six years what's it looking

00:31:35.040 like right now yeah it's much better like what's interesting is i am not an extreme morning routine

00:31:41.100 person by any any means i am not getting up at 4 a.m i typically get up between about 7 and 7 30

00:31:46.200 and you know once i get up i'll go to the bathroom and then i'll come into the kitchen

00:31:49.820 and then i typically do a 10 minute meditation followed by about 10 or not many less than i

00:31:56.660 should do jumping jacks and then some push-ups and then i just make breakfast for my wife while 0.75

00:32:01.160 she gets ready and then during this time i don't check my phones so my phone would have been on

00:32:05.000 airplane mode in the kitchen overnight so i don't check it unless i have a meeting but for the most

00:32:09.540 part that's okay and then we just sit and have breakfast together kind of slowly and we just talk

00:32:14.440 about the day ahead and the great thing about this routine is she has her space she's allowed to get

00:32:19.320 ready you know while i'm in the kitchen making breakfast and then in that time when we're

00:32:23.500 speaking we're not talking about the news we're not talking about you know what someone just did

00:32:27.540 in the press or something like that we are just literally sitting down and talking about our days

00:32:31.560 and it's a really relaxing way to start the day especially when you consider many of our lives

00:32:35.800 nowadays which is just you know being inundated with emails being inundated with things to do

00:32:39.840 it's a really nice way to continue on the calm of the night into the morning right so morning

00:32:44.420 routines can be a way to connect with those you love oh totally yeah it's many people we spoke

00:32:49.200 with especially those with families with young kids just really talk about the importance of just

00:32:53.200 if they can you know often people have to leave early but if they can just having breakfast together

00:32:57.380 having that moment of connection because for many people especially with younger kids you may come

00:33:01.300 home and they're already in bed so i'm just having the time in the morning is a really great way to

00:33:05.660 connect and really great way to be together as a family i'm curious did you come across any

00:33:09.120 routines that really didn't seem like a routine like they're just like i you know it's not it's

00:33:14.500 not what a typical morning routine you think it would be a morning routine they just i don't know

00:33:18.440 i don't know what i'm trying to ask here yeah it's just it's like completely random right yeah we've

00:33:23.240 definitely had a few of those on the website i think none of those really made it into the book

00:33:26.500 because on the website we've published close to just over 300 routines now and there's 64 in the

00:33:31.520 book many of which are brand new the majority are brand new for the book but yeah we we do

00:33:35.600 interviews people sometimes and it's fascinating so what they talk about is great so we do publish

00:33:40.780 it but i'm like i'm not sure if that's entirely entirely what you would do every day all right so

00:33:45.420 uh there's like one thing someone can start doing today to make their morning routine better tomorrow

00:33:50.420 what would be that recommendation like it's an easy a lot of roi but it's super easy to implement

00:33:54.800 yeah so i would say the best thing and this is kind of you know outside of the box but the most

00:33:59.360 important thing is to just make sure you get enough sleep the night before and like i said so many

00:34:04.540 people come to me they say they don't get enough sleep but they wonder how to improve their routine

00:34:08.180 that really truly is the answer because if you're tired if you're just constantly groggy you're

00:34:13.260 constantly lacking in sleep uh you you are not going to get you know you could have the best morning

00:34:17.520 routine in the world it could have all these exercise elements that you could meditate you could do all

00:34:21.600 these things but if you're sleepy while doing these things you're really not going to get the most out

00:34:25.380 of it so definitely the number one tip is to just make sure you're not tired in the morning

00:34:29.200 well benjamin is there some place people can go to learn more about the book and your work

00:34:34.120 yeah so you can order the book right now by going to my morning routine.com book which has links to

00:34:39.700 amazon and everywhere else or you can head to your local bookstore barnes and noble or anywhere the

00:34:44.280 books are sold and you can find me personally at benjaminspaul.com and on twitter and instagram

00:34:49.920 at at benjaminspaul fantastic well benjamin spall thank you so much for your time it's been a pleasure

00:34:53.900 thanks for having me bro it's been great my guest today was benjamin spall he's the co-author of the

00:34:58.120 book my morning routine it's available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere you can find more

00:35:02.340 information about his work at mymorningroutine.com also check out our show notes at aom.is

00:35:08.260 slash morning routine where you can find links to resources where you can delve deeper into this topic

00:35:12.400 well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more manly

00:35:28.000 tips and advice make sure to check out the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com we've got

00:35:31.920 4 000 articles over there if you haven't checked those out yet also if you haven't already i'd really

00:35:36.220 appreciate if you give us a review on itunes or stitcher that helps out a lot and if you have done

00:35:39.840 that thank you please consider sharing the show with a friend or family member if you think we get

00:35:43.460 something out of it as always thank you for your continued support until next time this is brett mckay

00:35:47.560 telling you to stay manly

00:35:49.400 you

The Art of Manliness - November 05, 2018

#455： How to Create the Perfect Morning Routine

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript