The Power of Morning Routines for Entrepreneurs

YB
Younes Baghor - WebWizArt
8 min read  •  Aug 30, 2024
Having a morning routine gives you a clear mind, time for your yourself, and a feeling of accomplishment.

source: Nano Banana

Introduction

I was recently at a startup meeting with a lot of young and older entrepreneurs. During all those talks was one common thread. People lack a morning routine. It started when I asked starters what they do on a daily base to grow their network and do outreach to potential clients. When I specifically asked people what their morning routine was, the first response I got was a smile and then most answered with “I don’t have one”.
 
Of course they do have some routines like get coffee, go to the restroom, take a shower and eat breakfast. But nothing more, I did hear a lot “checking social media”, but when I asked “with what purpose are you checking social media?”, there wasn’t really a purpose. So people are just scrolling away without any purpose, mind blowing and such a waste of time in my opinion.
 
So in this article I will tell you about the origin of morning routines, the benefits, what mine routine is and how it helped me. 
You will be surprised of the benefits and will probably start your own tomorrow.

From Chaos to Structure

Honestly, I never had any routine besides my coffee in the morning and restroom visits. And only when I grew in my career I started to create routines. At the time I was managing 27 people, I had to do dailies all morning, and meetings in the afternoon. I started to be unable to get my own work done, and started to search for solutions.

Time Blocking and Initial Routines

One of the first things I found was time blocking, I blocked several moments in my calendar to get my work done. These were time slots that I wasn’t available for meetings or other people, this was “me” time. 
 
But my blocked slots were still chaotic, so the next thing was to find a way to improve this “me” time. So I started with blocking the first hour of the day every day and create a list of tasks. I remember that one of my first morning routines was something simple like:

Step by step that routine grew, I added things like check LinkedIn, and check my RSS to read news about technology.

A Time for Change

I did this for years, constantly adapting my routine depending on the project I worked or the companies I worked for as a freelance consultant. It was about 2 years ago I decided to quit consulting. I have been working for over 25 years and during COVID worked 3 years nonstop. It was time to take a break and have some time for myself and focus on the next thing I wanted to do, dive into AI.

Embracing New Practices

At 42, I started to notice that the body wasn’t as young as the mind anymore. I had more back pain, migraine and inflammations. And having a teenager at home is a heavy period in life. I realized that my kid was growing up and would leave one day, so I had to learn to let go.
 
I started all kinds of things like meditation, yoga, running, stretching, calisthenics, mindfulness, and then stumbled on Stoicism. Stoicism change my life, but that’s for another article. But one of the things I learned was having a morning and evening routine and journaling. I have to admit I was not a fan of journaling. But Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius convinced me that it was a good thing. Journaling and morning routines are a thing people already did in 30 BC.

Creating Your Own Morning Routine: Steps to Get Started

But how do you start? I started with a digital canvas, but you can use a big piece of paper as well. Then I started to think about all the tasks I had to do, and wished to do, things that benefit my mind, my body, and hobbies. The tasks for my job or business. And the regular things people do in the morning like going to the restroom, take a shower, eat breakfast, drop kids at school and so on.

Next I analyzed and wrote down what my current morning routine was. Then I started to add to the list and order the different tasks. The goal here is to get an idea of the amount of tasks. Then I had to figure out what the best order would be. I combine tasks like checking my phone atthe restroom, do my stretch exercises when in the shower, listen to an audio book while exercising, read a book while eating.

When the list is created and ordered I began to add a time estimation to each task, to get an idea about how long it would take to finish al de tasks. Then and only then I started to place tasks on a timeline and created a schedule in my calendar and created alarms on my phone.

Key Tips for Success

My First Structured Morning Routine

Let’s take a look at my first morning routine:

Three things happened:

From Routine to Habit

A routine is the first step to create a habit, a routine will guide you with your tasks until they become a habit. This is what you want, you want to create habits. You want to do tasks without having to think about them.

Adapting to New Challenges: BrainBlend AI

So earlier this year I co-founded a startup with my friend named BrainBlend AI. With BrainBlend AI we do consulting for firms on how to discover AI opportunities and implement AI into their processes. We also wrote a framework to build scalable agentic applications, Atomic-Agents. I am the CEO and my partner is the CTO.

So I had to adjust my routine, because there were new things I had to complete daily, and I wanted to convert them into a habit. I have to do sales, sent out cold and warm emails, follow up on social media, ready and study technological innovation of AI. And don’t forget to do outreach via LinkedIn and connect to people to create awareness of our framework.

My Current Morning Routine

Today my routine looks like this:

It’s a long list, but after a while things go faster and smoother and become a habit. I wake up at 7:00 and around 8:00 I start sending mails. Around 8:45 I go for a walk or start exercising and around 10 I sit on my desk ready to start tackling tasks using the Pomodoro technique. And I only check social media with a purpose. The reason to check my socials are to learn, read technology news, do outreach, comment on interesting posts.

Unexpected Growth

If you had told me 2 year ago that I would one day do all this stuff. I would never have believed you and laughed at your face, me talking walks in nature and doing exercises, yeah right I don’t have time for that.

Positive Outcomes

But the truth is that I do feel better in body and mind. I see myself grow on a personal level in my journal and I can reflect on several moments in the journey of the startup. I have fewer issues with impostor syndrome, less pain in my body and a feeling of accomplishing something. I even have more time.

Is it easy to get started, hell no, I started with a lot of alarms and notifications, putting each action in my calendar or my clock. Printed lists and pinned them to the wall in the restroom, next to the coffee machine, in the bathroom and on the fridge.

Was it worth it? Yes. Will I fail? Probably, but that’s not bad as long that I realize it and pick up the routine again. At one point you realize you don’t need lists or post-it’s on the wall anymore because it has become a habit.

Conclusion: The Impact of a Structured Morning Routine

Life has been going smoother for me, not only creating routines but Stoicism has helped a lot with this too. I have more energy, more time for my family and kids and even for myself. I play more video games and read more books than 2 years ago. My body doesn’t hurt, less migraine and I even started skateboarding again.

So the things you should take away from this are, to live life slower, but more organized, you will get more things done without feeling rushed or failed.

Your Turn: Share Your Morning Routine

So what is your morning routine? Let me know in the comments, I’m always eager to hear other routines, so I can adjust mine.