My Incredibly Therapeutic Morning Routine

After years of trial and error...

As a bit of a productivity fanatic, you may be surprised by my morning routine. It’s very simple.

Make tea

Read

Watch the sunrise

That’s it.

It usually lasts about an hour.

My morning routine of choice

I’ve tried many, many morning routines, each with varying results. Some involved getting up at 4 am, others at 10 am, some with incredibly strict practices, some completely free.

Each routine has a very specific desired outcome. Tony Robbin’s for example, involves preparing yourself for the day through gratitude and visualization. Andrew Huberman’s involves a deep work focus session right away after waking up with strict rules on caffeine and waketime. Some aim at preparing the mind, some at ruthless productivity and discipline, and others at biological hacking for more energy.

Those sound good and all, but I prefer my own routine. Slow, simple, and peaceful.

That’s why I wake up, make tea, and read while watching the sunrise.

It’s splendid.

Why start my day this way?

Let me tell you how I ended up here.

I’ve spent quite a bit of my life going full tilt, micromanaging my productivity to perfection so that I could accomplish more each day. And I did accomplish a lot. It’s been great. However, accomplishments don’t bring fulfillment and happiness. That was a hard truth to uncover. So what did I do? I pushed harder, assuming I just hadn’t accomplished something big enough.

The scary part of this is that I had no idea I was doing this. Only looking back can I see what was driving me. I kept speeding up and speeding up, until eventually my life couldn’t take that pace anymore, and it decided to take matters into its own hands. When life pulls the e-break at 100mph, buckle up.