Successful Blogger Shares Secrets of Morning Routine

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You’ve all read those “habits of successful people” and “best morning routine” articles. Is this just another one of those? Well, yes. But it’s a little different.

That’s because my morning routine doesn’t follow the conventional scripts. You already know the basic types.

First there’s the “Crunchy” kind: get a full night’s sleep, wake to the sound of birds chirping, practice “mindfulness” for 20 minutes, then do some yoga and meditation, drink green tea, and eat an egg-white omelette made with local asparagus and eggs from cage-free free-range chickens. Eventually get to the office at 11:00 am.

That’s not for me.

But I’m not big on the “Ironman” kind of morning routine either: wake to an alarm at 4:30 am, dunk yourself in ice-cold water for five minutes, run six miles wearing a weighted vest, then drink a cup of dark-roast coffee mixed with New Zealand goat butter. Then go to your job at the shoe department of J.C. Penney and kick ass.

No, I’ve got my own special morning routine.

The first thing you need to understand is that your morning routine actually starts the night before. If I want to have a super-productive day, I start by setting my iPhone alarm to go off an hour earlier than usual—for me that would be 5:00 a.m.

The alarm goes off at 5:00 am. I stagger over to the nightstand and hit the snooze button, which I think is set to nine minutes by default. There is probably some way to change that, but with my busy schedule I haven’t had a chance to research it. Anyway, over the next hour I hit the snooze button another six or seven times.

You might ask why I don’t just set the alarm for 6:00 am and get up without hitting snooze. What you don’t realize is that I’m not actually sleeping during that hour. Instead, I make productive use of that time by lying there half-awake thinking about the most stressful things I have to deal with that day. Scientists say this releases a special chemical in the brain that increases stress. And that helps me keep my mind focused.

When I eventually get up, I make my way to the bathroom, close the door so I won’t wake my wife, and sit on a stool in the closet. It’s a plastic stool that is just the right height. For a five-year-old. Then I open my Twitter feed and start scanning. This doesn’t help me wake up, but it does help me catch up on the latest salary increases for starting associates at big New York law firms.

Once it sinks in that third-year lawyers will be charging twice my hourly rate, I’m in just the right mood to step on the bathroom scale. “All right, that’s it, I’m starting my healthy eating program,” I say to our cat sitting on the counter. “Tomorrow.”

Then, after a shower, a clean, close shave with my Philips Norelco® 5850 electric shaver, and getting dressed, I’m ready to take on the day. But this is where I pause for some alone time in my study downstairs. It’s quiet in the house, my wife and kids are still snug in bed, and the morning sun is just peeking over the horizon. It’s a great time to sit alone and dwell on past regrets and failures.

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Behind the scenes at our photo shoot

I know, they say you should learn to let go of regret and learn from your failures. But I prefer to hold on to those regrets and to keep making the same mistakes. I feel this increases my empathy and “emotional intelligence.”

Once I’m feeling agitated enough, I’m ready to hit the road. I pull into the drive-through lane at the new Shipley Donuts just down the street. “I’ll have four—actually, make that five—original glazed, please.” While I stress-eat my donuts, I head towards Starbucks and turn on some sports-talk radio to find out for the final time if Lebron James is better than Michael Jordan.

Stopping at Starbucks gives me a chance to get out of the car so I can brush off those little shards of donut glaze. When I step out of the car, my glasses fog up, but it’s ok because I don’t need to see the menu inside. The guy at the counter has already put in my order and says “hey, Zach, that’ll be $4.17.” After I scan the front pages of the free newspapers, I grab my double-tall cappuccino.

I’m running late for work, but before driving off I have to vent some frustration about the political news of the day with a sarcastic tweet. “Ha, take that!” I say to no one in particular. You shouldn’t hold that emotional stuff inside.

I have a long commute, so this is the time to educate myself with a podcast on the latest law practice trends. But seven minutes in to “Best Practices for Law Firm Cyber-Security,” I get bored. I switch over to the “Bob Schneider’s Song Club” podcast, so I can hear some stories about B. Schnitty’s drinking days and how he came up with the lyrics to “Cap’n Kirk.”

After about 80 minutes on Houston’s fine freeways, I’m slouching over the computer at my office desk. This is crucial time. Researchers say you have the most mental focus in the first few hours of the work day. So I use that time wisely by checking my blog stats. I can’t wait to see how many people viewed my hilarious post about choice of law in non-compete litigation. The result is underwhelming: 17 views since Monday. And that’s just my family.

Dang it. It’s already 10:30 am and my morning mojo is shot. Time to hit Starbucks again. But maybe this time I should go with the green tea.

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Zach Wolfe (zach@zachwolfelaw.com) is a Texas trial lawyer who handles non-compete and trade secret litigation at Zach Wolfe Law Firm (zachwolfelaw.com), but he’s angling for an endorsement deal with Philips Norelco. He also wants to kick out the jams and rock the block.

Five Minute Law assumes no liability for incidental or consequential damages that may result from following this morning routine. Photo credit: Eric Wolfe.

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