Morning Routines are a Distraction

Do more with less—and reach your important goals faster.

Regarding this image, the guy who helps with my Substack replied, “I never want to be reminded of what I created today.”

I recently posted a thought on social media that drew some love—and pushback:

What I enjoy most about Two Percent is that we can dig into the nuance in a way we can’t in a 280-character Tweet¹.

I’ve appeared on a lot of podcasts over the last handful of years. I enjoy every conversation.

The question I’m asked most often that isn’t directly related to my work is, “What’s your morning routine?”

At first, I found it strange that I was getting this question so often. Then I realized morning routines are having a moment.

The idea is that a well-choreographed morning routine is the secret to success in (insert anything). As one popular podcaster said, “a correctly scripted series of steps in the first 60 to 90 minutes of your day dictates whether you’ll have an optimal day.”

Morning routines first rose among self-optimization gurus, then spread to the masses. Google searches for “morning routine” are now up 600 percent. Major media outlets, from the New York Times to CNN to Self, are running stories on building the perfect morning routine and unpacking celebrity morning routines. TikTok videos tagged with #morningroutine have been viewed around ~30 billion times.

We’re not talking about common morning behaviors, like brushing teeth and eating breakfast.

These routines are filled with complicated wellness- and productivity-related practices. Lots of them.

It can sometimes feel like a Saturday Night Live Stefon skit, with online influencers telling us our morning routine should have “... everything: 4 a.m. wakeups. Twenty minutes of meditation. Gratitude journaling. No screens. Athletic Greens. Cold plunge. Fifteen minutes of sunlight exposure. Breathwork. Butter coffee but only after 90 minutes of being awake. Zone 2 cardio …”

First things first: A routine is just a repeated pattern of actions we tend to do in a given context.

Whether we design them intentionally or fall into them by accident, we all rely on routines. They shape our days, reduce the number of decisions we have to make, and free up mental energy for other things.

A good routine improves our ability to reach our most important goals. A bad one does the opposite, often leading us into distraction and procrastination.

So the idea of designing a morning routine is good: it’s a conscious effort to clear the runway to reach our biggest goals.

But the more I’ve looked at the rise of morning routines, the more I wonder if we’re straying away from that intent. I worry that, instead of clearing the runway, we’re actually putting barriers on it.

From here you’ll learn

• The psychological reason why we crave complicated morning rituals when facing life’s biggest goals.

• How a fascinating study from Texas A&M proves your perfect routine might actually be a liability to your daily performance.

• The chaotic, wellness-guru-defying morning habits of self-made billionaires like Warren Buffett and Serena Williams (and my favorite writer).

• Morning routines done the right way, from a popular doctor and podcaster.

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Let’s roll …