You don’t need a crazy morning routine to crush your mornings. Just follow this one simple rule.

10 years ago, I had a crazy morning routine.

You know the type. It was like those peddled on Instagram by hustle-porn-addicted “entrepreneurs”. 4 am wakeup, meditation, breathing, cold showers, workout, journal, and on, and on…

I did love walking in to work at 10 am having already conquered my mornings. But once I had kids, it stopped being feasible.

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

Perhaps I went too far

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 we often don’t give ourselves the time or space to process everything and form our thoughts.

This affected my ability to think clearly.

Now I only have one rule each morning: Creation before Consumption.

The exact time in which it happens does not matter.

All that matters is that 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.