Mindful mornings

You don’t have to be a morning person to create a mindful morning routine. By working with your body clock and creating rituals that work for you, not against you, even the latest risers can set the right tone for the day.

- CHARLIE HALE

Ever since Dolly Parton sang about tumbling out of bed and pouring herself a cup of ambition in the cult movie hit 9 to 5 we have been obsessed with optimising our morning routines. A myth has since emerged that dictates only the early risers among us are destined for success, and while we can’t blame Parton’s country anthem, it’s a story that has come to dominate the conversation around our mornings.

The pervasive narrative goes something like this: you must wake unthinkably early, eat a protein-rich breakfast, exercise, meditate, blast your email inbox and complete the day’s “must-dos” all before the sun rises. This, hundreds of CEOs have told us in various “Day in the life of” columns, is the only way to “set yourself up for a productive day”.

The problem with that, of course, is we all work differently. Some people are night owls with a disposition for the dark, often found typing emails at the kitchen table come 11pm; others make the most of the morning, and when that 3pm slump hits, it’s all over. Then there are those among us content to run on five hours of kip and the rest of us who need to clock a good eight-hour whack. The point is, a one-size fits-all prescription to morning routines is anything but productive.

When the pandemic came to shake us from our comfortable (and perhaps dysfunctional) norms as it did, it transformed our morning routines. Daily commutes were cast aside, school runs were no more — our regular schedules were suddenly obsolete. What we were left with was time to fill or otherwise pass away our mornings in a way that felt intuitive.