Create Before Consume – The Simple Rule That Replaced My Entire Morning Routine

10 years ago, I had a crazy morning routine.

You know the type. It was like those you see on Instagram by MLM “entrepreneurs”. 4 am wakeup, meditation, breathing, cold showers, workout, journaling, and on, and on… But once I had kids, it stopped being feasible.

So I tossed my routine out the window. All of it.

Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater

By ditching my morning routine, I also ditched my thought processing time.

We are all constantly bombarded by input from all directions. TV, radio, podcasts, conversations, emails, and social media. And my morning routine allowed me the time away from inputs to process everything I had in my “mental queue” and form new thoughts.

Now, since I didn’t have this “processing time”, I lost my ability to think clearly.

The Solution: Creation before Consumption.

The exact time in which it happens does not matter.

All that matters is I block my brain from inputs until I’ve created some output. It can be a journal entry, an atomic essay (like this one!), the tweets for the week, or anything else I have on my plate at the moment.

Creating first thing in the morning forces me to process all the remaining inputs from the day prior, organize my thoughts, and “clear the cache” before collecting more input.

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