Your Morning Routine Inspires Your Day, with Benjamin Spall [Episode 685]

Benjamin Spall, co-author of My Morning Routine: How Successful People Start Every Day Inspired, joins me on this episode.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• The function of having a morning routine with intention is to make your morning successful and bring that success to the rest of your day. Benjamin started a website about it over five years ago and then developed the book.
• Benjamin refers to ‘habit stacks’ from The Power of Habit. Your stack is a sequence of habits. Everyone has a morning routine but their routine might not have a positive intention. Modify your intention and habits.
• Benjamin chats with his wife before checking his phone. The phone is for important needs, not for social media surfing or emailing. Do work email at work. Benjamin doesn’t allow the stress of work to come into his morning.
• Benjamin interviewed successful people for the book. 60% of them check their phone immediately and the majority of those actually say they wish they didn’t! 49% check their email immediately. (Some habits die hard.)
• Don’t fall for absolutism. For some people, the bad habit might be not checking the phone the first thing! Benjamin wants to get people to set their own routine. If you don’t put something into your routine, it likely won’t happen.
• Benjamin works out at lunchtime instead of in the morning, but you are much more likely to do it first thing in the morning than later. There are some routines that work better for singles and some for families.
• Put activities at the time that’s best for you. Set a constant, predictable breakfast that satisfies you until lunchtime. Experiment with your wake up time. Don’t hit ‘snooze’ on your alarm, if you use one.
• Andy observes that successful people include exercise in their routines. Benjamin agrees. Exercise at a time that works for you. Your workout can be as simple as walking a few blocks.
• Andy likes reading a business-related book in the morning and a physical book for pleasure at night. Andy uses Evernote to cut and paste from ebooks to take notes and email them to himself. He looks forward to reading.
• Getting enough sleep is one of the most important findings in the book. Without enough sleep, your morning routine will not be energizing. You will not feel like working out.
• Bob Moore talked about choosing what to wear. He was the oldest person interviewed and one of the most fascinating. Andy thinks people should wear a ‘uniform’ for their routine to cut decision fatigue.
• Benjamin talks about decision fatigue. The fewer decisions you have to make, the better decisions you can make. Put out your clothes the night before.
• An important part of Andy’s routine is giving himself the time to think. Then he sends himself an email with his ideas and thoughts. Benjamin includes high-level thinking about goals in his meditating.