Ask HN: What's Your Morning Routine?
recently got let go, and am trying to stay focused and productive despite all the unstructured time.
starting the day off with a constructive morning routine seems necessary right now.
what's your morning routine? does it work for you?
211 comments
[ 4.9 ms ] story [ 248 ms ] threadWake up, prepare breakfast, prepare for work (read emails), calisthenics, breakfast, start working.
After left job:
Flight ticket to Nepal, 6.30am hikes in Himalayas daily, flight to Thailand, activities early morning, flight to Philippines, diving early morning, etc etc
My recommendation: think about what makes you happy, keeps excited, develops your skills/knowledge, etc and do it, every day, from early morning. Don't overthink it. Don't copy others.
And drink water.
After meeting many people on my travels, I realized that this "lifestyle" is less about money, and more about the mindset. I'm not splurging, also not frugal, but some people are. Having an Excel (Libreoffice) spreadsheet helps a lot with planning :-)
Edit: I don't have debt, children, neither spend money on luxury items (or, well, items at all, I'm a minimalist).
Didn't do anything special to save except not having kids.
In the summer I’d have my tea on the balcony. It gave me a bit of time to just think about stuff.
I’m trying to add stretching to the routine, as it requires little effort and feels really good. When I’m dog sitting I also walk the dog in the park before anything else.
I also try to make room for a nice breakfast. This requires some advance logistics but it’s so rewarding.
If it's Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, weigh myself.
Get breakfast ready for my kids. A banana, half a fiber bar, and a cup of milk.
Start my coffee. Nothing special, just an old school coffee maker that uses a standard filter. Three cups of water and three spoonfuls of coffee grounds.
Make my oatmeal. A quarter cup of oats and a half cup of water. Put it in the microwave for two minutes.
Eat breakfast with my kids. Then I drop them off a school.
Once I get home, I log into work and eat an orange. Afterwards I start my day.
I realized for me that the only time I can work out consistently is early in the morning. For me, journalling is also a non-negotiable. This means I have to wake up a lot earlier (5:30 AM), to get everything I need to get done. This means I also need to be in bed by 10:30 if I want to get the sleep that I need.
2. Cold brew coffee and some kind of small breakfast, maybe a cookie or something
3. Do NYT + Apple News Crosswords and some other word games
4. Some combination of watch TikTok, read on my Kindle, 20 minute workout
5. Brush teeth and leave for work between 6:30 and 7:30. Either run or bike commute.
6. At work, do a 30-minute planning session to get ready for the day.
I find it works really well for me. It’s all stuff I like to do. Sometimes I end up doing my workout after work instead of before, but other than that I’m pretty consistent. Once in a while on a weekend or holiday, I’ll do no alarm and will sleep until sometime between 5:30 and 7:30AM.
My 30-minute planning session is based on the book Work Clean by Dan Charnas. Really great way for me to prioritize and have a clear plan for what I want to accomplish on a given day. The most interesting thing I’ve found with this is that there’s some days that just feel overwhelming before I plan. And then once my plan is written down nearly everytime it’s like, “Huh, that doesn’t seem too bad.”
I used to have desires for an extensive, productive morning routine, but now I get everything out of this that I want and plenty of sleep.
Check my calendar so I have an idea what my schedule looks like for the day, especially looking for start-of-day meetings. Start "spinning up" in my head. Shower & clean up, dress for the day.
If I have spare time before my workday starts I'll usually spend it catching up on personal email or checking the news. I very specifically avoid "fun traps" in the morning, no personal projects, books I may be hooked on, entertainment media, or engagement based platforms I might loose time to.
At the end of the day I cap it off with a proper workout and another walk with the pip. I find having a semi-enforced schedule to actually leave the house at the beginning and end of the day give me good mental touchstones to know when I should/shouldn't be working. I still find myself occasionally picking at something in the evening, but at least when I do I'm making an explicit choice to _go back to work_.
one of my biggest traps right now is using the morning (when i have the most energy & feel most focused) to tinker with my own creative projects. i can look up and it's 2pm and i haven't applied to any jobs, reached out to my network, or worked on any interview take homes.
if i turn around and it's mid-afternoon before i start doing the stuff i need to do, this typically means the day is shot.
I don’t want the first thing my body does to be sitting, and I don’t want the first thing my eyes see to be print.
It works for me, but it'll be nice when I reach my goals and I can drop down to maintenance mode and go to the gym a little less frequently.
There was a study that said you got better results if you drink a protein shake and then work out. So that became standard advice for a decade, then somebody did a study where they gave people the shake before or during or after the workout and it was all good.
Some people have GERD and other problems if they eat too soon before a workout. When I was in my late 40s my digestion became more sensitive and I found I could not eat so much before I had to go to the gym. Working out hungry might train your ability to burn fat, but many people can't sustain hard workouts if they're too hungry. Serious athletes like Micheal Phelps who train hard all the time have a hard time eating enough to support all the training they do so it is no wonder he became a spokesperson for a proton pump inhibitor.
I also have suffered low bone density from not fueling. I was diagnosed with RED-S (relative energy deficiency in sport). My body was canabalizing muscle and bone for energy.
I suspect age is a big factor here (I’m in my 40s). But I definitely will fuel before working out from now on.
certainly works for me. perhaps someday I'll have a more productive one, but I like how this one maximizes sleep and phone usage.
I wake up. I make some coffee. I then make a smoothie with spinach, banana, and whatever other fruits for breakfast.
During this time I hopefully remember to take my medication.
If it's a workday I'll then go and do some work. If not, I'll probably start organizing. I'm bad at relaxing.
I have a recurring reminder on my phone and find that it helps keep me on track for this.
I'm not used to taking medicine and only started a couple months ago, so found that I can easily forget without it.
Hahaha oh man, I feel you on this! I have a 7 day pill organizer that I have found does wonders for my ability to #1 take my meds and also #2 have a visual reminder that I did, that I DONT HAVE TO REMEMBER. Nothing worse than being 3 hours into the day and being gripped with "OH SHIT I FORGOT MY MEDS".
Lately I have been on a kick where I do some plain greek yogurt, some fresh berries (whatevers good) and a healthy pile of granola. While prepping I try to keep them separate like a pie chart. I don't mix it all together per se but as I eat there's the most delicious venn diagram in the middle.
Lately I've had a strange obsession with instant coffee and sweetened condensed milk. Maybe not the highest quality but its so quick and easy when I have zero energy.
I really enjoy breakfast and the morning meal... the getting to work part not so much. Definitely more productive in the afternoon / evening, but breakfast makes the morning worth it.
I think somewhat starting the day with mindful exercises helps greatly for rest of the day. I do this morning routine daily for a week, feel great. Then stop doing because i feel great, downward spiral starts. and start again.
7:20 walk back home, walk the kids to school (at 7am my wife woke them up and prepare breakfast for them, she workouts in the evenings)
8:15 back home, unload dishwasher, breakfast with wife.
9:00 start working from home