According to the author of Atomic Habits, if you get better by only 1% everyday, you will end up with results that are nearly 3700% better after one year, thanks to the compound interest of habits. And there is my red starting point of about 1 year ago.
And here, is my general morning habit routine that I’ve been trying. (I wasn’t able to keep up all the habits) Also, these are only for my working days because yes, I want to rest over the weekends and holidays.
If you are interested in why I chose these habits and some more details, you can find them below. 🙂
🌄1. Wake up Early in the Morning
Why?
- After reading Miracle Morning, I agree that I can focus better on important and productive activities in the morning because I get too tired that I hardly want to do anything after work. 🥴Also, to finish all the activities in time, it was essential that I get up early.
What exactly?
- Initial plan was to go to bed at 12 midnight and wake up at 06:00am. However, after realizing habit time from 6am is not enough for all my habits, I changed my bedtime from 10:30pm to 04:30am.
🛏️2. Make up the Bed
Why?
- Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss mentions that many titans (referring to those who accomplished a great deal in their lifetime) developed this habit, and since it wouldn’t take so much time, I’ve decided to just try it
What exactly?
- Wake up in the morning, and make up the bed, which usually takes less than 1 minute to do so.
🧘3. Meditation
Why?
- It is somewhat funny why I wanted this habit. As a product manager, I receive more than 100 emails and messages overnight everyday, and when I opened up my laptop, I was very overwhelmed every morning looking at them. So I wanted to have some peaceful time to get myself ready to face all possible things that can happen to me on the day.
What exactly?
- As a beginner meditator, I preferred guided meditation. I went on YouTube and played meditation guide music for around 10 minutes.
🏃4. Exercise
Why?
- Everyone knows the importance of exercise/workout. I have been no sportsman my entire life and especially during the COVID time. That’s all the reason I needed to develop this habit.
What exactly?
- Jogging in the morning, I’ve also bought myself some dumbbells for basic weight training.
🍞 5. Breakfast
Why?
- Having breakfast is important to wake your brain up in the morning. However, realistically speaking, you absolutely need to have breakfast if you wake up at 4:30am and stay happy till the lunchtime.
What exactly?
- I usually have airfried bread with jam or cream cheese, I sometimes make myself some garlic bread as well.
📰6. Read Newspapers
Why?
- I wanted to know what happens everyday, although many of them may not have direct impact on myself. I believe being aware of world issues, economy, politics, technology, global trends etc makes a huge difference when I make future work and life choices.
What exactly?
- I have signed up for New York Times online, and they send me morning briefing everyday on weekdays at around 6:00am. I sometimes also go online to read articles in Japanese and Korean because perspectives on the same issue can greatly vary depending on who is viewing it.
✏️7. Study/Productive Activities
Why?
- Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish. There are just too many things I need to learn and sometimes I feel as if I know nothing about anything. Especially as a product manager, I wanted to know a lot more about product management itself, as well as other fields such as economy, investment, consultation, languages, even productivity tools I can use at work
What exactly?
- Early activities focused more on learning product management itself by reading related books and materials, attending conferences, approaching other product managers about their working styles etc
So that’s it for [Part 2]. In the next and last part of the series, I would like to share with you my current result of developing these habits and my habit plan for the upcoming future. 🙂