My 57-Step Morning Routine

I adore waking up at “unreasonable times”.

There’s just something magical about waking up earlier than everybody else, the peace and quiet around you, and knowing exactly what you have to get done in your first work session.

Once you understand circadian rhythms, sleep chronotypes, and some ground rules about daily energy levels, you’re essentially free to wake up whenever you want, at whatever times you want, energized as fuck, and able to sustain that energy throughout the day.

Here’s a thing I’ve discovered for myself:

Cranking up energy levels in the morning works exceptionally well me.

For my preferences, my daily routine and schedule.

That means, getting as amped up as humanely possible before my work, in the shortest possible amount of time.

And I honestly thought my morning routine to do exactly that was short and sweet enough.

Until I actually listed all the things I was doing. Turns out?

Holy crap it’s a long and autistically detailed set of actions I do every single morning.

No walks, sauna sessions, or affirmation chanting in front of the mirror - but a lot of tiny things:

• waking up

• turning off the alarm

• mixing electrolytes into water

• drinking that

• heading into the bathroom

• refilling my water mug

• short flex in the mirror

• starting to brush my teeth

• …

Tiny, tiny steps.

For anyone interested - if you don’t break it down into micro steps, my morning routine currently looks like this: Wake up, drink water, bathroom, cold shower (yes I enjoy them), make coffee, and on to work.

I tried waking up and getting to work asap in the past - it’s better for short work sessions, but suboptimal for overall daily energy.

Back to the micro steps - why did I list them in the first place?

The answer is pretty boring:

Optimization.

Said simply, the more you think while performing routines, the less effective they are.

Why?

Mental Energy

The point of routines is to save you the energy expenditure of thinking.

Less thinking = less decision-making, which leads to saving more mental energy.

So, as the optimizer that I am, I tried listing out every single micro-step of my morning routine, just to get clear what exactly I have to do before work, and which tiny steps I could automate, frontload to my evening routine, or delete entirely.

For example:

Preparing the coffee machine.

It’s a pain in the ass to stand there waiting for your coffee machine to heat up - and the first thing you notice is that the coffee beans are running low.

Well fuck - now you gotta find the next pack of beans, open it, fill up the machine, store the pack away, and at best continue by having to fill up the water tank as well.

You’re completely right.

This is high-level complaining I’m fabricating right now, yet it would be dumb not to get rid of this tiny headache if I can.

And the only way to ENSURE you’re not wasting energy (and time for that matter) is by listing every tiny micro step or your routines - thinking about where you can optimize even more.

I did this for my morning routine because I don’t want to waste a second before diving straight into my highest priority work.

I did this for my evening routine to make sure I don’t forget anything I want to prepare for the next day.

I’m not (yet) autistic enough to map out my entire day lol.

The point stands:

If you want to save your energy through routines, make sure you do it the right way.

• List your entire routine

• Automate, delegate or get rid of every step you can

• Perform the next day - and make notes and improve over time

I could ramble on about this topic forever - but I’m not going to right here.

Instead?

I’ve got something for you.

Next week, I’ll finally launch another giveaway for all of you.

I’ve put 10x more effort into this one than all of my old ones before this. Genuinely, counting all the thinking, the writing, editing, designing, reviewing, and the heartbreaking process of removing everything that’s not 100% valuable to you - I put 100 hours into this baby.

It’s going to be a complete guide from A → Z on achieving ultimate peak performance.

Including an entire section on how to manage your energy levels so you don’t crash halfway through the day (a pretty common problem among any hard worker).

Don’t worry, I won’t suggest you perform a 57-step morning routine.

Genuinely so excited to present it to all of you :D

More details coming in the next days.

See you soon,

Henri