We are all similar, but not the same. Our work programs are different, our family size is different and our personality types are different. However, no matter if you are an early bird or a night owl, no matter what time you wake up, your body goes through certain phases, biological processes that are more or less the same for all of us. There are some deep rooted similarities in our basic biological setup. We all have an internal master clock and a circadian rhythm that aligns us with the rhythm of the transition from day to night and night to day. Based on this we can find the framework to build a strong morning routine on.

Article Summary

Your morning routine doesn’t have to be drastic to help you start your day in a more productive way, some people prefer more harsh methods and some do well with more gentle processes. Your morning routine has to be yours. It is a mistake to think that you can just take and apply with success all that others say about morning routines on insta, youtube and the lifestyle blogs. You might want to follow their ideas and test the processes, but based on those ideas it is better for you to create your own morning activity flow.

Are you interested in building a strong morning routine? In this Article we detail:

• What is a morning routine?
• Why bother with building a morning routine?
  • List of benefits of building a morning routine
• Step by step guide to designing your morning routine
  • List of steps for designing a good morning routine
• Conclusions and perspectives on morning routines

Note. This is a longer article discussing morning routines in detail. For just a few quick tips and a list of practical, productive things to do, you’d better read : Quick Tips for Your Morning Routine.

What is a Morning Routine? Definitions

What goes into the morning routine depends a lot on what period of the day do you refer to as morning. Most morning routines talk about the timeframe that spans from waking up to leaving the house, when in fact that can be 6-7 a.m. for some people and 11-12a.m for others. So the very first step when designing your personal morning routine is to clarify your concept of what morning means to you.

The morning period in general refers to the time period starting with the sunrise and ending at noon. There are of course, large cultural differences, geographic differences, and so, when exactly morning starts and ends can be different in different parts of the world. 3a.m. can be considered early morning in some places and seen as the middle of the night in other places.

Defining what you consider morning period is important, so you will know what is the timeframe that you want to fit your morning activities in. We can segment the morning period and thus your morning routine, into 3 or even 4 phases based on when is your usual wake up time.

Morning     3/6 a.m. to 12 p.m. (noon)

• PHASE 1 – Sunrise time 4 am —- 6 am
• PHASE 2 – Early morning    6 am —- 8 am
• PHASE 3 – Mid-morning 8 am —- 10 am
• PHASE 4 – Before noon      10 am —- 12pm

Most morning routines will fit into what is called here phase 2 and 3. The 4a.m. club has an extra segment to work with. Also some people, who learn and work from home, might want to extend the plan of their morning routines till noon, because being at home gives them more freedom to routinely plan activities even after 10 a.m.

A morning routine is a way of structuring your morning period and organizing your morning activities into a productive flow within a pre-set timeframe.

Definition of morning routine from anchortobloom.com

Simply put a morning routine is about a set of activities performed in the morning, that are largely the same for every day of the week. Repeatedly performing those activities day after day, turns them into a habit eventually. The idea is to choose activities into this timeframe, that lead to both short term benefits and long-term results. Your chances of getting those things done that are important to you are seriously increasing when you consciously choose and plan your morning activities.

Essentially, the building of a strong morning routine is about finding a set of activities that lead you to results that you personally find meaningful, and than organizing them into a structured, practical flow. This guide presents some of the timeless, basic principles that anyone can use to build into the routine that works for them.

Main Benefits of Having a Morning Routine

The biggest benefit of any routine, including a morning routine, is structure. It keeps you on track. When you design a morning routine you consciously prioritize yourself, your plans and your needs and so it is harder to get you off your track. Otherwise you could be like an autumn leaf in the wind. Any small outside influence can have the power to distract your attention away from your life goals and channel it into the plans, needs and realizations of other people. A good morning routine will include enough me-time, to allow you to connect with and build up your emotional stability and productive mentality. When you are rooted, you can stay focused and concentrated even when you can go and cooperate with others.

List of benefits of having a morning routine

• Feeling more in control of your life
• Feeling more energized
• Feeling more confident
• Getting more organized

As opposed to the popular approach, in our view morning routine is not about how many thing you can check off your to do list before noon. It can boosts your confidence a little when you get things done, but many people get into being busy, using energy without producing results. Busy doing what? is the main question here. The much bigger boost in confidence is when you feel empowered, in control and ready physically and mentally to be involved in all kind of interesting activities and situations during the day. Your morning routine can be a helpful tool for you in doing things efficiently, but when approached with an unhelpful mindset, it can lead to wasting or exhausting your energies during the morning hours.

Morning is one of the best periods during the day to gain control over your life. Winning starts in the morning! they say. Morning is the time when you have the least influence from anywhere else. This is the time to focus on your life, because you have fewer distractions around you. When you spend time to focus your mindset it gives the necessary momentum for you to show up as a well established structure rather than a wiggly play doh. In the morning you have the best chances for boosting your mood and confidence from the inside out.

Step by Step Guide to Designing Your Morning Routine

The most basic and simple approach to morning routines is to look on it as a way of organizing your morning activities. You could spend a little time to think about the timeframe, the necessary activities and all the practical things that you want to do in the morning. Than you could look on your health, wellness and personal development goals. Based on that you can create a daily plan, a to do list where you arrange those activities in an efficient way within your chosen morning timeframe.

So let’s take out a piece of paper and let’s start planning.

The first step is defining your morning timeframe. Those who wake up at 4 am and those waking up at 9 am will have very different approaches to designing their morning routines.

Morning activities. The morning routine to be strong and boost your satisfaction with life, has to take into consideration the pieces of your current lifestyle. The activities to include in your morning routine are those things that work for you. Your morning routine is about filling your mornings with activities that can promote your wellness, health and productivity on the long run.

• There are family responsibilities for some, professional responsibilities for others and there are many who have them both. You want your mornings to work in harmony with these tasks and responsibilities not against them. Integrate them as being part of your garden (= your activity and focus system) and learn not to see them as the big bad wolf outside the fence, that stops you from doing your personal development. Your family and professional responsibilities can be viewed as the small steps you are taking toward reaching some of your long-term family and professional goals. We start the list with what is absolute necessary to do, and if some activities are time bound, jot down the timeframe next to it. What time you need to be in the office? What time you need to leave the house? What time the kids leave the house? What time you walk your dog in the morning?

• Do you want to include in your morning routine only the necessary, main activities that you have to do? Well usually you don’t need much planning for that. Some activities aren’t absolute necessary, but can make our days feel better, run smoother and can also provide some long term personal development benefits. This part is where morning is really linked to contentment and success. Your morning routine can create a solid base, a strong momentum for health, wellbeing and confidence. The main question about any activity is why? Why to meditate in the morning? Why do you want to work out in the morning not in the afternoon? When you find the answer to the why and it clicks emotionally with who you are, than add the activity to the list. If your answer feels like a sentence from a newspaper without emotional aspects or you cannot answer the why, leave that activity out for now. Or put it on the “experiment with it to find out how it feels” list.

• When designing a new system for your morning activities it makes sense to look on the system already in place. Think about your mornings as they run now? Are there any parts that work well? Are there parts that you like and want to keep in your new routine? Are there parts that serve you well already? Write them down. We encourage you to reflect on the order in which you do these tasks, and spend some time to think why you and your family does things this way. Are there more practical ways you can think of?

The next step is getting more familiar with the facts of your biology and your personality.

• An important step in creating a strong morning routine is to familiarize with and understand better your natural biological rhythm. Learn about the circadian rhythm and how the body works in the morning.

• Another step is getting familiar and raise your awareness about your personality type. Are you a night owl or you prefer being an early bird? The morning period may be a period of enhanced energy for some or reduced energy and productivity for others. This can be deeply rooted in our biology so it is better to work with it and not against it. A good morning routine for you and your type of people can be very different from a good morning routine of another type of person.

When you have all that information it is easy to create an organized, planned way to start your mornings based on your needs and desires. You can create a written and/or visual checklist to assist with planning and organizing tasks required for getting ready in the morning. Last but not least, stay open and experiment. This can simply mean, that you try out different hours to wake up, different morning activities and you find out what feels good and what isn’t your piece of cake. (Trying out means here a longer period, like doing it for at least a week, but better for a month.) You might learn interesting, new aspects about yourself in the process.

Conclusions and Perspectives

When you have some preset flow for your morning activities it is easier to do all those things that are important to you. Habits and routines are ways through which you teach yourself to do things automatically. Routines like morning routines can help you to be more organized, calm and collected.

Morning routine is a way of sequencing activities in your morning timeframe. All tasks and activities–sometimes even the simplest ones– involve a series of steps that add up into a larger sequence. Creating a morning routine is practicing your skills in sequencing. Sequencing and following routines is necessary for larger life planning. So it is not the morning routine itself that is the winner, but the mindset and the skill you learn by building and practicing it.

Related post in our lifestyle category : Quick Tips for Your Morning Routine

Resources, further reading : The Rise Science Guide to Improving Your Sleep , Scientific report : Irregular sleep/wake patterns (2) , Caffeine and adenosine,

Image credits : Photo1- Sunrise over the sea,