Are you a morning person?
I am — though I won’t pretend I spring out of bed full of energy and optimism. It’s more like a quiet appreciation. The stillness before the house wakes up. The smell of coffee brewing. The way the morning feels like it belongs entirely to me before it belongs to anyone else.
Somewhere in my 40s, something shifted. I started noticing how fast life was moving…how a whole week could blur past in a rush of tasks, errands, and obligations, and I’d arrive at Friday feeling busy but not really present. Not really intentional. I was doing a lot, but was I doing what mattered most to me?
That question has stayed with me. And it’s led me to make small, deliberate changes in how I start each day.
This is what that looks like right now.
This is probably the single most useful thing I’ve done for my mornings and honestly, for my whole sense of structure. I wake up at 6am, before the rest of the family starts their day.
It sounds simple, but consistency here is everything. When you wake up at the same time each day, your body finds its rhythm. You stop fighting the alarm. You stop negotiating with yourself. It just becomes the thing you do. This has made waking up so much more pleasant.
If you work from home or for yourself (as I do), this matters even more. There’s no office, no commute, no external structure forcing the day to start. That structure has to come from you and anchoring it to a consistent wake time is the foundation everything else builds on.
Before anything else, there are three cats who have VERY strong opinions about breakfast timing. So first things first, always feed the cats.
Some routines are non-negotiables. 😻😻😻
Once the cats are taken care of and the coffee is brewing, I sit down with a book. Right now I’m reading The Enchanted Hour: The Miraculous Power of Reading Aloud in the Age of Distraction. It’s a neuroscience-backed look at what reading does for the brain and for family connection. I find everything about the science of reading genuinely fascinating, and this one has not disappointed.
I choose intentionally choose non-fiction in the mornings. I want something to think about… an idea to carry with me through the day, something to muse on while I’m doing the school run or doing work for clients. Non-fiction in the morning gives my brain something to ponder in the quiet moments.
Reading first thing, before screens and email and the noise of the day, has become one of my favorite parts of the morning. It’s quiet. It’s me time. And it sets a tone of intentionality that carries through into everything that follows for the rest of the day.
During the school year, the morning includes a school run. I’ve turned it into a small win.
My habit stack… drink a full glass of water on the drive to school and back… have it finished by the time I pull back into the driveway. That’s it. No extra thought put into the process. I’m already in the car. The water is already there. It’s just part of what happens.
I start the day hydrated without having to think about it. That’s the magic of habit stacking! You attach a new behavior to something you’re already doing, and it stops feeling like a task.
As soon as I’m home from the school run, I don’t check email. I don’t open Instagram. I don’t start tidying. I grab my headphones and head outside for a 30-minute walk. It’s a nonnegotiable.
(If the weather is miserable… and sometimes it is… I jump on my rebounder - a mini trampoline - and watch a YouTube video. Movement is the goal. I love to get outside if possible, but as long as I’m moving, I’m happy.)
I cannot overstate what this does for my brain. By the time I sit down to work, I feel calm. Present. Ready. Starting the day with movement shifts something mentally — it clears whatever noise showed up overnight and gives me a clean slate to think from.
Movement before work is not negotiable for me anymore. It has changed the quality of my thinking more than almost anything else.
By the time I sit down at my desk, I’ve read something that interests me, moved my body, hydrated, and had some quiet. I haven’t doom scrolled. I haven’t started reacting to other people’s priorities before I’ve addressed my own.
I feel like myself. And that’s when I can be my most creative self.
I’m not sharing this as the perfect routine you should copy. I’m sharing it because I spent years rushing past my mornings without ever really designing them and the difference has been profound for me.
You don’t need an elaborate system. You need a few small, consistent anchors that help you feel grounded before the day asks things of you.
Take a look at your own morning. What’s already there that you could build on? What one thing could you add that would help you feel more like yourself before the day begins?
Start small. Stay consistent. Let it compound.
Read. Move. Build the habit. Change your life.
Speaking of small daily habits that compound… in June, I’m running a challenge built on exactly this idea. Three habits, ten minutes each, thirty days. Reading. Movement. Intentional habit work. If that sounds like something you need, stay tuned…
I think my habits fluctuate, a little bit more than yours too, but my situation is quite different. This does sound like it works very well for you though. My late wife found movement exercise exercises, very helpful with her osteoarthritis in the mornings when she could do it. As for me now, though, it seems well you have probably just recently risen, I have just finally selected a movie to watch before I go to bed for the day and probably get up around 6 PM. I like that you make hydrating a habit. It’s so easy to forget that!