Apple CEO Tim Cook starts his morning routine at 3:45 a.m. Ellevest CEO and co-founder Sallie Krawcheck starts her morning routine at 4 a.m. General Stanley McChrystal too. The comparative late bird Jack Dorsey doesn’t start his morning routine until 5 a.m.
It’s worth starting early, of course.
Boxing co-founder Aaron Levie doesn’t start his day until 10 a.m. Neither did Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. (Though that may have changed now that he and Serena have a daughter.) In response to the article by Marcel Schwantes, a colleague at Inc., that highlighted research that showed the world’s most successful people were making their day Starting at 4 a.m., JK Rowling tweeted, “Oh, piss off.”
So who should you be emulating when trying to follow the perfect morning routine? Koch, Krawcheck and Dorsey? Or Levie, Ohanian, and (obviously) Rowling?
None of them. The only thing you should be emulating is what they and countless other successful people have done: create a morning routine that works for you.
As? Start with some basics. Then use the same approach you use to running a business: evaluate the results and adjust as needed.
1. Embrace your inner early or late bird.
While early risers claim this is a simple matter of willpower and persistence, research shows that almost half of your chronotype, or your internal body clock, is genetic.
Take the circadian rhythm, the process that regulates the sleep-wake cycle. The biological clock of the average person runs every 24.2 hours. Instead of a periodic “leap day” to reset ourselves, we adjust a little each day to account for the 12 minute difference.
However, some people have internal clocks that run longer than 24.2 hours and therefore naturally fall asleep later and wake up later over time.
That said, they did not choose late birds. They are late birds. This is how they are made.
So, if it sounds like a hot death starting your morning routine early, that’s not a problem. Correlation – the fact that many successful people start their morning routines extremely early – is not a cause. As a result, successful people who start their morning routines early are not necessarily successful. They are successful because they have adjusted their body clocks to their schedules.
As much as the nature of your business and personal life allows, start your day at a time that works best for you. If you’re not sure, experiment. Try at 6 a.m. for a week. Then try 6:30 a.m. or 8:00 a.m. or 4:30 a.m. See how it feels, but more importantly, see how it works.
Because when you start your morning routine doesn’t matter. What matters is what you do when you start.
2. Take up some moderate exercise.
Research shows that just 20 minutes of moderate exercise will improve your mood for the next 12 hours.
“Moderate intensity” aerobic exercise with an average heart rate of about 112 beats per minute – raised but still in the lower-middle range of the cardiovascular intensity scale – improved participants’ moods for up to 12 hours after exercise.
“Moderate-intensity aerobic exercise immediately improves mood and these improvements can last up to 12 hours,” says one of the researchers. This means that by adding exercise to your morning routine you can ensure that you are getting the most out of the “happier” 12 hours that follow.
3. Include protein in your first meal.
University of Illinois nutrition professor emeritus Donald Layman recommends eating at least 30 grams of protein for breakfast. Tim Ferriss in The 4-Hour Body; Tim recommends taking these 30 grams of protein within 30 minutes of waking up.
Foods high in protein will keep you full longer than other foods because they take longer to leave your stomach. Protein tends to keep blood sugar levels more stable and prevent hunger peaks.
Research has also shown that dopamine regulates motivation: in this case, you are initiated and persevere.
Which is exactly what you need to do when you wake up: initiate and persevere.
If it sounds daunting to squeeze 30 grams of protein into a “regular” breakfast, try a protein bar or shake. They are much more convenient (and tend to be much fewer in calories).
4. Start your work day with something you really want to do.
Don’t check your email; When you do this, you are only dealing with really important topics. (It’s easy to confuse “urgent” with “important”.) Don’t immerse yourself in your social media feeds. Don’t make your day easier.
Before you stop working today, plan what you will do first tomorrow. Prepare to get started right away.
Getting an important task done first will set the tone for the rest of your day. You’ll feel really good – and be motivated to get onto what’s next on your list.
5. Then evaluate and adjust.
You may need to start your morning routine a little earlier to ensure the quiet time it takes to get your first task done. You may need to start your morning routine later to make sure that you feel rested, refreshed, and “on”.
You may need to schedule a little exercise for later in the day. Or customize what you eat.
Or maybe, like Steve Jobs, your morning routine is simply asking yourself a question:
For the past 33 years, I’ve looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself, “If today was the last day of my life, would I want to do what I’m going to do today?”
And if the answer has been no for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Or maybe – and this is key – you need to help those around you adjust to your morning routine.
You probably don’t think so, but everything you do “trains” the people around you on how to treat you. Let coworkers interrupt your meetings or phone calls for “emergencies” and you can interrupt them at any time. Drop what you do every time someone calls and they will always expect immediate attention. Send your email back first thing in the morning and people will expect you to reply that way.
In short, your actions give permission to other people to prevent you from working the way you do best. So make sure your actions give you permission to do the way you do best.
Test, evaluate, adjust as needed, and make conscious decisions about your morning routine.
Not a reflexive choice based on what you’ve always done. Not a copycat based on what another successful person does.
Thoughtful, smart, and logical decisions based on what makes you most successful.
Because when it comes to your morning routine – and the rest of your day – that’s all that matters.
The opinions expressed by Inc.com columnists here are their own, not those of Inc.com.
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