Ask HN: What's Your Morning Routine?

Office Space (1998)

- first thing i do is drinking big glass of water

- doing Sun Salutation yoga sequence, either 1 time or N times -as long as i am willing to do that day-

- spend first 15 minutes of working hour with coffee and writing a short todo for that day into paper.

I cannot emphasise enough how doing mindful exercises -even 1 minute!- regularly in the morning helps with my ADHD.

But here is my ADHD trap: I do yoga every morning, feel better, since i feel better stop doing them at some point because i don't think i need it. Downward spiral starts and i lost track of my ADHD.

My schedule is trying to squeeze about 30 hrs of parenting, work and sleep requirements into a 24h day.

Then start your materialistic business end of your day. Learn to breathe and keep your mind calm and present throughout the day. Watch/catch yourself if your mind runs wild with background threads – try and disable background jobs in your mind for a few weeks.

If you have a spouse/partner, discuss these goals with them and ask for their cooperation while you are trying to change your habits. Have realistic expectations, and be generous towards others.

Coming to materialistic business hours of your day, focus on problem-solving and living in reality.

Work through your own personal Maslov's hierarchy of needs. Be strategic, be realistic, and try to build a reasonable position of confidence. Then, launch yourself further from there. Don't overextend yourself.

All the best!

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.”

In all seriousness, sans young baby the most productive time of my life has been fitting exercise/side project time in between 4:30-6am. I made some real gains during that time and plan to get back into that routine once sleep isn't so rare.

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_.

- wake up + coffee + read in bed

- take the dog out for a 15 minute "wake up walk"

- take a vitamin d pill, turn on my SAD lamp, and stand at my desk

- write for an hour

- light house chores after writing

- start paid dev work

this has been near life changing. i was never a morning person until getting this routine established.

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.

Sounds ineffective, but I tried a lot and productivity is unmatched that way for me.

After that drink a cup of coffee, and another glass of water, after which I first go to work at around 7:30, where I start with reviews, testing changes, and get through email. Standup is at 9:15, when I get another cup of coffee. The rest of the day is just cruising along; coding some stuff, fixing bugs, having some meetings etc... Usual SWE stuff.

Having started early, I can finish early, which gives me time for cooking, which I find very important. Because I already had my exercise in the morning, evenings are for me, my family and friends.

Weekends are similar, except I wake whenever I naturally awake, so my body and mind can recover where necessary, Although most of the time I still am awake at around 7:00.

This routine works very well for me. I try to keep low on alcohol and caffeine, of which the first one is going very well, but the second one a little less since I had a child a few months ago. Oh well...

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 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.

I answered in that one, and I see that things have slowed down for me a bit since then. My routine has been more in flux during November and December since we took a week of vacation, then had the holidays, and have been fighting colds. This time next year I'll be living in a new place, working a very different job, so I'm anxious to see what kind of routine I'll be able to establish then.

    - wake up 6-7 for dog toilet time
    - make decaf coffee
    - drink coffee, and use laptop to:
      - do some programming, or
      - read some hackernews threads about something that interests me currently
    - get ready for day
    - walk dog

    - at no point in time is my phone nearby, nor do I use it
    - I use a brick phone
    - I only read hackernews on my laptop, old threads, I've blocked all social 
        media and news sites (incl Reddit - blocked)

I just know I‘ll have a better day if I can slot in workout, meditation and cold shower.

9:05 - Join the standup, start work.

~10:00 - Have breakfast (hopefully) during some useless meeting

~11:00 - Finally wake up completely, make coffee and hope to get some uninterrupted time in the afternoon to get some work done.

~12:00 - 15:00 - productive work

~15:00 - outside dog break, more work after

16:30 - usually done with work, watch some YT or play a few games.

18:00 - start making dinner, eat, get ready for dog walk #2

19:00 - 20:00 Dog walk

Do whatever after, until about midnight.

It sucks being a night owl with brain damage, but there it is. Some days it takes me until noon to "wake up" completely.

Wake 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.

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.

When I was in between jobs, it was mostly similar but I got up an hour later than I would usually and wouldn't hit the shower until like 10 am. Maybe work on some project or watch something, eat lunch around 12 and then either go out for a walk or get groceries done. Only in the afternoon I would job search, call back people. Its only a few hours but I had to learn not to try to constantly job search, because there simply is no point and it would just make me feel like I was failing at it.

I'd say you're right to want some structure, but you're perfectly fine not having it all be productive.

  6:50......TODO wake up
  7:00......TODO brb
  7:02......TODO catfood
  7:04......TODO fasting glucose
  7:05......TODO ketones
  7:06......TODO weight
  7:07......TODO hydrate
  7:08......TODO am meds
  7:10......TODO shower
  7:20......TODO hair
  7:22......TODO shave
  7:25......TODO teeth
  7:27......TODO deo
  7:28......TODO morning netty
  7:28......TODO wash netty
  7:33......TODO chg jeans (+3d)
  7:33......TODO dress
  7:38......TODO pockets
  7:42......TODO litter
  7:45......TODO bkfst/coffee
  8:00......TODO journal
  NB: this is a good time to
  apply the quiet art of attn
  (see my other HN post) and do
  your best to like or dislike
  current thought patterns
  8:15......TODO email
  8:30......TODO chats
  8:40......TODO calendar
  8:45......TODO planning
  9:00......TODO login/execute
 12:00......TODO lunch/nap
 18:00......TODO logoff
 18:10......TODO text friends

0531 calmly explain to face kicker that it's too fucking early to exist and they should in fact still be sleeping.

0537 slowly drift back into a tranquil deep slumber.

0600 be ripped against every fiber of my being from freshly entered deep sleep to the chorus of alarm clock, haptic alarm from the supercomputer strapped to my wrist, partners alarm, and 3yo screaming for food.

0601 coffee.

0602 feed rabidly hungry child spawn.

0604 coffee.

0607 change poo filled diaper of previously noted face kicking food screamer.

0613 stand on small sharp toy left in hallway. I find this is a great way to really invigorate the senses.

0615 coffee.

0630 begin attempting to dress the tiny human that has taken ownership of my home.

0631 experience enthusiastically recited full Irish dance routine as I attempt to get pants on the face kicking, food screaming, poop making, toy leaving offspring.

0640 coffee.

0645 ask child to confirm that have in-fact finished with their half eaten breakfast.

0646 throw out remainder of breakfast.

0647 make new breakfast as they were not finished with previous breakfast.

0700 attempt to get child into bike and leave for childcare / work.

0700 - 1000 actually leave for work / childcare drop off.

I find this routine to be a great way to really center and focus you for the day ahead.

Suffice to say no one wants to hear my morning routine, but I am curious to see all of yours.

Wake up around 8:30, brush and floss teeth, do a small workout while waiting for my moka pot, fill up the water bottle. Then I go for a physical book or reading some articles on the laptop. Trying not to touch my phone and any messaging apps until 10:00.

Get up, turn on coffee machine, down a pint of water, have my espresso, work on my own projects for two hours.

After that, I hit the gym/run, take a shower, and start my work day. When I've been unemployed, my "work day" was hitting up friends for jobs/scouring my linkedin network to see who works where for potential leads.

You'd think two hours isn't enough but in that time I've managed to build/write:

    - a bill splitting service
    - a jobs aggregator
    - an appointment scheduler
    - a room booking service
    - a graphql API monitoring service
    - a site speed monitoring service
    - an uptime monitoring/status page service
    - a blog with dozens of top ranking articles
    - a book

Once the coffee is ready, I drink it while planning out the day (in a rough manner), basically moving stuff around in my calendar, turning some emails to tasks, etc. When I'm done planning, I get to work.

On non-work days, I sleep as much as I feel like, and no coffee, so as to avoid developing a caffeine tolerance.

Wake up at 8.

Take the dog out (she does her business quickly, it doesn't take more than 5 minutes and then she's the one pulling to go home) and feed her.

Put the moka on the stove (the moka has been prepared the previous night), and while I wait (and then while drinking coffee and eating something sweet) play my usual list of light games (wordle, framed, strands, bandle (if the lady is up, since we play this one together, otherwise I'll wait for her to play it later)), go to the bathroom to do my business and wash up.

At 8.30 I sit at my computer to start work.

I check my mail, chats, see if there's any ticket that requires my attention, then the meetings start and the usual day of work begins.

I'm in better shape than I was throughout my 30s, have more muscle, better posture and generally feel more energetic and alert through the day.

While at the pool I listen to Audible books (wearing Shokz), so get through a new book every couple of weeks also.

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.

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

I have a list of things I still wanted to do/achieve over my break, including reading a few books, finishing an online language course I’ve been doing, exercising daily, finishing a painting, etc etc… so I pick something out of those things and then that just leads into a relaxing and fulfilling day.

I wake up without an alarm clock and the day starts here at 9:00. If I am at home I make it to the first meeting, if at the office it depends.

After getting up, a biofunction and a shower I take my pills. This is the only hard routine I set up. Also using the My Therapy app helps a lot in not missing this.

The cat makes sure I do not forget to give her her first breakfast.

And that's all. I do not think you need to have a routine to have a good life. And, only second, be productive.

I am French so there is a cultural aspect to it: productive is not the first thing that gets to my head when I think about my day.

  - Wake up around 10am, quick breakfast that wife prepared. 
  - Play with the kiddo and help wife around the house.
  - Leave for work anywhere between 1 and 4 pm. 
  - 15-30min commute, audio book or just thinking time since I'm driving, pickup lunch for the day if wife didn't pack anything. 
  - Office, work on administrative tasks before 9-5
  - 6pm get online and join the daily with remote team
  - 2 am finish work, make last tea for the day, clean the office, work on side project 
  - 3:40am drive home
  - 4am go to bed

Wake up and go to the garage to warm up the gym - the average temp is around 20F in the AM so it takes ~40 minutes to get to a comfortable temperature.

Make coffee, let dogs out, take meds and supps. Im making a serious effort to step away from social media so ill listen to NPR instead while thinking about what I need to do that day or knocking out quick chores. I dont eat breakfast on workdays.

Train for 1-2 hours.

My first work meeting starts around 9-930.

On the weekends or holidays my spouse and I cook breakfast together and talk.

I lift weights (at my "home gym") on my lunch break (except Wednesdays) for 45 minutes. Use the last 15 minutes to eat a lunch I have prepared (a salad or a sandwich + a protein shake).

Overall, it works. I tried working out at 7:00am, but my workouts were horrible that early. Kinda wish it worked so I could fit a power nap in at lunch. But, I don't function too well that early.

When I was working, I got up at 0500 and worked for two hours (I usually set aside a challenging coding task for this slot the day before). Then the core strength exercises, task list and breakfast (although not as leisurely).

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.

Does it make me productive? Not at all. But at least, it makes me extremely healthy :D

Return to bed, sleep until 9. Coffee, brain pills, anti-SAD light visor in winter, a little food if my digestion is online, loud wakey-wakey music.

Open the laptop and start looking around Slack about 9:30, standup at 10, then my schedule is largely up to me: my work is good about minimizing the impact of meetings, probably better than anyplace else I've worked.

Not sure how well my routine works for others, though ;)

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.

This is how 90% of my workdays go for the last 1.5 years :)

6:30 wake up, make coffee + read a book while drinking my coffee

7:00 get dressed and leave to go to the gym or for a walk

7:30-8:30 exercise

8:30 - 09:00 shower + make breakfast

09:00 start work (remotely)

I feel much more fulfilled when I get some non-work reading and exercise done before a work day. Sometimes I sleep in, but then end up regretting it.

Take a quick shower and hope the kids stay asleep a few more minutes or at least entertain themselves.

7:45am Get the kids up (if they are not already awake). Make them breakfast and get them dressed and out the door by 8:30am.

Head to work after. Some days take the train others head back home and work from home. Maybe grab coffee if I have time.

Get to work, faff for 30mins buying coffee and cookie and then eat. Simple enough routine.

I feed the pigeons, I sometimes feed the sparrows too. It gives me a sense of enormous well-being. And then I'm happy for the rest of the day

I hate my job lol

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.

Astonishingly normcore for someone who isn't.

7:00-7:30 pour coffee, get dressed, wake up, side project time

7:30-8:00 breakfast with kid, drop off at school

8:00-16:00 work with stretch breaks and lunch break

16:00-17:00 side project time

17:00-bedtime dad mode (h/t to other poster who used this phrase)

When I get home I start a pot of coffee

Shower

If it's a work from office day I leave for work at 5:45 (~15 minute drive)

1-2 hours of reading HN, twitter, blogs

I grab my sticky note pad and I create a checkbox list of 3-5 things I want to accomplish

I start working through the list

7:31AM open Hacker News, begin absorbing news

8:15AM open YouTube, begin scrolling shortform content

8:45AM open Reddit, begins scrolling content

9:00AM get out of bed

9:01AM make a coffee

9:03AM walk to home office

9:04AM begin work

Although exaggerated, this is sadly quite an accurate representation of my mornings…

By now it's about 9am, so when I was working I'd usually have standup.

Now, with toddler (and currently pregnant wife in the throes of morning sickness who can't do nearly as much as usual as a result): - Wake up between 5-6am - If I wake up before toddler, slam coffee and try to poop in peace before he wakes up. When he wakes up, get him out of crib, change and feed him. - If I wake up to the sound of toddler screaming because he is awake, get out of bed, change and feed him. Desperately try to finish a cup of coffee and poop before he is done with bottle. Probably fail at this and put on an episode of Bluey so I can poop in peace. - Entertain toddler until wife texts me that she is awake. Bring her coffee in bed. Make sure to do this without toddler seeing, so he does not rush in behind me. - When wife gets up, try to be productive and/or eat. - Exercise whenever I can. - Be grateful that I now own a business that mostly does not require a ton of work unless I'm making an acquisition. - Question how I could have lived like this if I were working full time.

My morning was always my favorite time, when I could start my day off just right mentally and physically. My child has stolen that time from me. I love him from the depths of my soul and would give up my well-being for him for the rest of my life if I had to. But hey I know teenagers don't get out of bed at 5am so I'll probably get my morning back at some point!

- Do 1 set of pushups. As many as it takes to get to failure

- Brush teeth

- Fill up and drink full water bottle, 21 oz

- Eat protein bar

- Start reading through emails and creating todo list for the day

Why is that? Privacy oriented shy hackers or real absence of it?

Avoid mirrors so I can delude myself into thinking that I am "growing" and not witnessing my darkening and drooping face indicating the rot from the inside from all the toxic water, toxic food and toxic air my body is subjected to every single day.

Get out of the house, walk two kilometers to my local railway station dodging filth, rodent carcasses, feaces both human and animal, armies of crows and pigeons, lepers, crippled and deformed beggars, rabid dogs, drug spit and vomit.

Wrestle my way into the overcrowded train like how you push down the stuck dirt in the kitchen sink for my daily "personal space" detox. Wear my bag the other way round because my company laptop is worth more than my life and I can't have it get stolen from behind, the butt-humpers breathing down my neck an acceptable cost.

Get off, fighting for my life in the process as I dive against the stream of people trying to get in through the same doors I am getting out (did I mention these doors stay open throughout the journey, even when the train is moving?)

Walk again to the next platform, repeat the whole charade with another open-door overcrowded train.

Take a 3-seater rickshaw shared with five people to my office.

Arrive at office with a big smile, to my big happy family that pays my bills and loan installments and allows me to exist for yet another month in this blessed existence.

Now the day can begin.

https://untested.sonnet.io/notes/stream-of-consciousness-mor...

And yeah, it works for me, although I would suggest taking any advice like this with a bag of salt as it’s highly context dependent. For instance, many of the little tools/toys I use are built by me therefore idiosyncratic.

That said, quite a few people use them on a regular basis.

PS this is a digital garden note, so check the backlinks at the bottom for more examples.

Woken up ~6:30 since kids need to get to bus-stop at 7 and 8am.

8am-9am Cardio (3days) Weights (2days)

9am-6pm Work

Lunchtime - Interval Training

6pm-9pm Kids/Family

9pm-10pm Spouse Time

10pm-1am Upskilling, Personal coding projects

** RTO Days **

Woken up ~6:30 since kids need to get to bus-stop at 7 and 8am.

4 hours R/T D2D on CommuterTrain+Subway

  2hrs on Commuter Train -- either sleeping or Udemy courses on iPad

  2hrs wasted time (driving, parking, waiting, subway, walking) - Podcasts, mix of uplifting and doom/gloom 

8pm-9pm Kids

9pm-10pm Spouse Time

10pm-midnight Too tired to do anything else: Doomscrolling YouTube, Laundry, Cleaning

My Github chart is zebra -- most commits and activity are on WFH days while office days are for collaboration/meetings. The more exercise i do the better my productivity and commit charts.

7am

* brush teeth

* drive to the office

* breakfast

* (sometimes) therapy

* start day

9am