*This post was updated on Sept 8, 2018
After John posted his morning routine, I started receiving a lot of requests and questions from people about my own morning routine.
Is it the same as John’s?
Do you guys do everything together in the morning?
While we’re both working on the same business, and we both have a lot of the same interests and goals day in and day out, John and I actually have a very different morning routine.
Are some of the things we do similar? Sure. But there are also a lot of things we do differently.
One thing that is always consistent: the morning routine each of us follows is what helps us set every day up for success.
My Morning Routine
1. Prep
Like John, I “start my day” the night before. For me, this includes some prep work to make sure I’m setting specific goals and identifying specific tasks I want to accomplish the next day – this means actually writing them down.
I do this with the help of The Mastery Journal.
I’m also heading to bed between 9 – 9:30pm. For me, not getting a good night’s sleep will definitely wear me down the following day. I read for probably a total of 4 minutes before I’m OUT!
2. Wake up
My alarm goes off at 6:15am, with the hope I’ll be out of bed by 6:30am. One thing I always do as soon as I get out of bed is make the bed.
It’s actually quite incredible how momentum builds (or fails to even begin) from the second you step out of bed. By making my bed first thing, I’ve already started my day off with accomplishing something. It might be small, but every small step adds up to something big.
Start your day by gaining momentum, and you’ll be setting your day up for success.
3. Workout
When I was in corporate, I always made it a habit to get my workout in first thing – otherwise, it probably wasn’t going to happen.
I’ve kept that routine going strong, and I love it!
When I don’t workout in the morning, I can definitely feel it. I drag through the morning, I feel stiff, and I can’t seem to get super focused on any one thing. It takes me a LONG TIME to get into any kind of deep work, and that just seems like a waste of my greatest focus time: the morning.
So that’s why I do it – no matter what – every morning. Wake up, workout.
Of course I’m not perfect… there are days when the snooze button gets hit way too many times, and in those situations, I’ll likely be doing my workout in the afternoon. But that’s the exception – not the rule.
Make no mistake: I WILL workout every day, even if it’s just a walk in the afternoon.
Getting a workout in first thing makes me feel GREAT. I’m super energized after my workouts and because I’ve already accomplished another thing before I get started with work, I’m motivated to keep that momentum going.
Trust me – the momentum thing is powerful. That’s why I feel so strongly about documenting steps and accomplishing little things that lead you to something big. Gaining momentum to help you stay motivated goes a long ways.
My typical workout
My typical workout consists of 1 of 3 things:
- Insanity
- Yoga
- Running
When I’m traveling and don’t have access to my normal settings, (which make it super simple for me to do any one of these 3 things), I use the 12 Minute Athlete App. This is an amazing app to help you get that high intensity workout in no matter where you are.
4. Get ready
After I workout I rid myself of any potential distractions.
For whatever reason, for me, the kitchen is a major distractions.
So while my coffee is brewing, (which only takes about 20 seconds thanks to our Keurig), I wash dishes and clean up the kitchen from whatever went down in there the night before.
This is one thing that WILL distract and drive me nuts throughout the day, and it’s so important to remove distractions before they take over your day when you’re working from home.
My breakfast: a delicious green smoothie!
Recipe for my delicious green smoothie:
- 2 handfuls of spinach (or until the blender is about 3/4 full)
- 1 frozen banana
- 1/2 cup of frozen blueberries
- 1/4 cup of water
- Any vitamins or supplements you want to add!
I add Organifi’s Red or Green Juice, Turmeric powder, flax seed, chia seed, and an all-in-one daily supplement powder from Dr. Stephen Cabral.
5. Just start!
With coffee (and smoothie) in hand, I’m always looking to be at my computer by 8am.
Lucky for me, I’ve already laid out what my goals for the day are, (I did this the night before), so I know exactly what to tackle first as soon as I sit down at my computer.
This simple 5-step morning routine consistently sets me up for success. Whenever I skip a step or do them out of order, it’s crazy to see how it shifts my productivity and focus.
So spend some time and test a few different things out – finding a morning routine that works for you will absolutely change your mood and how your day flows. Make it count!
Bonus: My typical day
Each of my individual days look a bit different based on a few factors:
- The calls I have set,
- Whether I’m getting together with my accountability / mastermind group, or
- Whether or not we have any webinars scheduled.
One thing is for sure: I always theme my days to make sure I’m giving myself adequate time to accomplish the most important tasks that help our business run.
There are also a few tasks that I know I’m going to be accomplishing every day.
Those include:
- Working with The Mastery Journal;
- Engaging and monitoring our community Facebook Groups;
- Getting to inbox zero; and
- Doing my daily roundup email (my checkin with John on the projects we’re working on).
Depending on the day of the week, or the time of the month, there might be other tasks or projects I’m focusing on throughout the day, but other than what I’ve listed above it’s all about crushing those specific tasks and projects I laid out for myself the night before.
That might be:
- Working on an email campaign;
- Setting up a new optin page for a PDF download;
- Updating one of our free courses;
- Creating content for the blog;
- Recording my podcast episodes;
- Writing our email newsletter;
- Creating video tutorials for our online courses
As you can see I definitely have plenty to work on!…and my days are never boring :)
In terms of timelines, my day runs from about 8am to 5:30pm with a few breaks throughout for lunch and just to refocus my mental bandwidth.
Again, because I use The Mastery Journal every day, it helps me build in refresh sessions, where I can give my brain a break and ensure that I’m not burnt out after only a couple hours of focused work.
Dinner is John and I’s queue to disconnect – this is a huge boundary we’ve set that helps us keep our personal relationship and our business relationship somewhat separate.
Once we sit down to eat, it’s our personal time away from our computers and away from work.
After a couple of TV shows or an evening stroll, it’s just about bedtime again :)
The importance of a morning routine
Whether you consider it a routine, a ritual, or simply a daily habit, having something you follow every morning is incredibly important.
In fact, knowing what my day looks like directly contributes to the amount of work I’m able to get done and the focus I’m able to give projects and tasks. I’ve tested this time and time again.
Having a core morning routine to follow is absolutely the reason why Entrepreneurs On Fire is where it is today.
So what does your morning routine look like? What are some of the things you do every single day that help contribute to your success? Share with us in the comments section below!
p.s. You can check out John’s morning routine here :)
