I was amused (to the point of wanting to vomit) when I read the morning routines of Mark Wahlberg, Jay Shetty and Oprah Winfrey:
Marky Mark: “Prayers and vitamins”
Jay: “My morning meditation includes breath work, visualization, and mantra to find balance and alignment throughout the day.”
Oprah: “I mix caffeinated and decaffeinated espresso with milk and a little hazelnut. As I wait for the brew to froth, I pull out a card from my 365 Gathered Truths box”. “When I want to meditate, I can go to a special rock that’s carved into the shape of a seat. Or I can sit underneath the 12 live oak trees that I call “the Apostles.”
Come on, really? I bet the truth is one of the following:
- Woken up by own farts,
- or need for the toilet
- or ideas that need to be written down
- or noise outside, or
- annoying or boring dream, or
- wife doing something nice, or
- dog has got into the room and licks my hands
- or brightness: the sun is out and I’m missing it! or
- wife has problem/emergency and needs to wake me up
Anyway, here’s MY morning routine!
I’m not a morning person…
I wake up between 8am and 9am due to one of the above
(actually 80% of the time I wake up just before the alarm clock, which is usually set for 8.30 or 9..00)
(If I wake up and it’s still really dark I have a button by my bed which speaks the time to me (£15 from amazon) so I don’t have to open up my eyes in case it’s early enough to go back to sleep).
Sit up, thinking “Must give up alcohol” or “Must go to bed earlier next time” (I usually get to bed after midnight)
Open bedroom window to let in some air. I sleep with it closed to keep out noise from people coming home from the pub at 1am.
Bathroom: brush teeth fairly savagely for a whole minute. Can’t speak to anyone before doing this.
Shower
key facts:
- I only use imperial leather soap because I don’t like the strong smell of most soaps – and also it’s surprisingly cheap
- Can’t reach my feet but hopefully the soap flows down onto them
Shave – I always use either too much or too little shaving cream which annoys me – can’t seem to get it right – and a G2 razor. Would like to upgrade to G4 but have several razors in travel bags etc and the spare blades never seem to run out at the same time. I buy spares in large quantities because I have a fear of the G2 being discontinued.
Comb hair while still wet – it will dry in the right place.
Look in mirror and tell myself “I don’t look bad for my age”
Back in the bedroom – get dressed.
Impressed by myself standing on one leg to put on my pants.
Go downstairs and say hello to the dog, who only gets up when I do – she is warm on one side from where she was lying in her basket.
The dog and I go for a 5 minute walk around the block – she doesn’t need to be on a lead, which I think is pretty cool. That’s my exercise done.
Breakfast: cereals, usually Frosties or Coco Pops.
I don’t ever drink tea or coffee, not for health reasons, I just don’t like them.
Sit on toilet and check emails – if there aren’t enough I scroll through facebook. If there are too many I just stay in there for ages.
Worry about the fact that I can only just reach my bum with the paper these days, I really must get into yoga.
No time for meditation or exercise – it’s 10am and time for a Zoom call, …and my day has begun.
This is your best post ever! And probably the truth to happiness and balance 😉 love it!
“Sit on toilet and check emails – if there aren’t enough I scroll through facebook. If there are too many I just stay in there for ages.”
I just burst out laughing and scared myself it was so loud.
Brother, thank you for sharing this. I hope you don’t mind that I’m going to tag you in a re-write of my morning routine and hopefully it brings a few more views to this brilliant article.
that would be great Jason! I’m jealous of guys like you who have got their act together, I know you really walk the talk, but I sort of wanted to say to people that you can be a terrible morning person and still be OK and do OK, like me!
Not really sure if the more fragile linkedin readers will be able to cope with the humour, but hey, let’s go for it anyway!!
You are a late bird indeed! I could not survive without coffee. It has become quite an expensive habit. I do see however, you are holding a pot of coffee?
yes indeed – it was for everyone else at breakfast. I never drink it, I wish I liked it, I think it would help get me going in the morning, but I just don’t like the taste of it….
So, just out of curiosity, if you don’t drink tea or coffee what do you have as a “social drink” when someone invites you round (daytime, pre alcohol of course!)? P.S. You definitely need to include 5 minutes of yoga stretches in your morning routine!
yes, that is a problem, I always feel a bit bad saying no thanks to tea and coffee. All I really drink is milk on my cereals, then Coca Cola or wine! Oh yes, and smoothies. I don’t really like water but that’s what I have in a meeting just to keep them quiet and not to look rude. Not sure how I survive with so little fluid intake!
Thank you so much for being so honest about your morning routine. I am relieved to learn that I am not the only “late” bird! I just took the “cost reduction” course on the CPD Formula website. Man, I learned so much from this session. I am a CF0 of a small business (70 employees) and I have to say that your ideas and points are so brilliant! I am looking forward to participate in more training sessions from you.
I’m glad you liked that course! For some reason it gets very few views, and yet it’s such an important subject and I think my courses is good, it looks at things from a different angle, so I don’t know why that is. So it’s extra great when someone picks up on it – thanks!!