My Morning Routine

How Successful People Start Every Day Inspired

By: Benjamin Spall, Michael Xander

Narrated by: Will Damron, Kaleo Griffith, Dominic Hoffman, Hillary Huber, Sumalee Montano, Arthur Morey, Fred Sanders, Karissa Vacker

Length: 6 hrs and 41 mins

Publisher's Summary

"The first few choices you make each morning determine whether you'll be productive and mindful all day, or whether the world will clobber you over the head." 

Marie Kondo performs a quick tidying ritual to quiet her mind before leaving the house. The president of Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios, Ed Catmull, mixes three shots of espresso with three scoops of cocoa powder and two sweeteners. Fitness expert Jillian Michaels doesn't set an alarm, because her five-year-old jolts her from sleep by jumping into bed for a cuddle every morning.

Part instruction manual, part someone else's diary, My Morning Routine features interviews with 64 of today's most successful people - including three-time Olympic gold medalist Rebecca Soni, Twitter cofounder Biz Stone, and General Stanley McChrystal - and offers advice on creating a routine of your own. 

Some routines are all about early morning exercise and spartan living; others are more leisurely and self-indulgent. What they have in common is they don't feel like a chore. Once you land on the right routine, you'll look forward to waking up. 

This comprehensive guide will show you how to get into a routine that works for you so that you can develop the habits that move you forward. Just as a Jenga stack is only as sturdy as its foundational blocks, the choices we make throughout our day depend on the intentions we set in the morning. Like it or not, our morning habits form the stack that our whole day is built on. 

Whether you want to boost your productivity, implement a workout or meditation routine, or just learn to roll with the punches in the morning, this book has you covered.

Read by Will Damron, Kaleo Griffith, Dominic Hoffman, Hillary Huber, Sumalee Montano, Arthur Morey, Fred Sanders, and Karissa Vacker

©2018 Benjamin Spall and Michael Xander (P)2018 Penguin Audio

Critic Reviews

“After a productive morning where I accomplish my big things, the rest of the day can be played by ear. It’s all extra from there.” (Ryan Holiday, author of The Obstacle Is the Way)

“A big part of my morning routine is about what I don’t do: when I wake up, I don’t look at my phone.” (Arianna Huffington) 

“Find certain things you know you should do, don’t like to do, or make excuses to avoid, and then do them every day.” (General Stanley McChrystal, author of Team of Teams; retired US Army General)  

Interesting Insights

the book is definitely worth visiting but I felt as though it was lacking. i had hoped there would be more science and deeper insights. this is literally just interviews with people regarding what they do in the morning. its interesting as a general census but does little to help you construct ideas and decisions on formulating your own morning routine.

May not be realistic for all.

Overall, a good book that we can all take advice from. Seemed like most of the examples came from high ranking leaders of companies, or writers that do not have set schedules and created one to have more structure. For the rest of us working 9 to 5's, there's a moderate amount of examples we can employ.

Interesting, but perhaps a bit overkill

I liked the book and hearing about various morning routines, but 6+ hours of just listening to different individual’s routines with minimal commentary/tips gets to be a bit much. Overall interesting, but not quite a 5 star book.

Need a Routine?

I just retired and no longer having to get ready for work, where the last year (COVID Year 1) work weeks were 55-60 hours, I lost my routine.

This book has helped me define a new one and I have stopped feeling like a slug and am doing things I hadn’t made time for previously, which bring me joy today. I found the first chapters, the conclusion, and the stats most helpful. (The parenting portion does not apply anymore, so I skipped it.).

Planning the night before is the way to go, but hours before bed so your mind isn’t reviewing what you just planned while you’re under the sheets.

Such stories were helpful. If I were to recommend any ideas to the authors it would be to include a few people who don’t drink smoothies or eat kale and spinach tofu wraps with a homemade fresh organic balsamic vinegar (just an example) and avocado for lunch. (Unless that’s the target audience).

I imagine there were many interviewed who did not make it into the book. Almost all of the contributors practiced a zen/yoga focused meditation. One or two practitioners of Judaism/Christianity would also be useful. (To be fair I did not listen to each story).

But yes, if you’ve had a big life change, or struggle with attention distractions, then creating a routine will benefit you, and this book definitely helped me. It sparked enthusiasm in me.

I recommend it.

Thanks,

Repetitive and biased

The selection of interviewees seems biased and this really skewed the results. The questions were conductive to obtain certain type of answers “Do you mediate?” That caused people who didn’t to find excuses (after all it’s “inn”) even to the point of saying their exercise routine is their meditation. Then they would explain more about that then about how to create good habits which was way mor important. The idea is good and it’s not a total waste of time but I found it too biased to be really useful.

Surprisingly boring!

This is by far the most boring book I have ever listened to in my whole life! I don’t know why I thought there would be more variation, or inspiration to hear people talking about their morning routines, but there wasn’t!

Great Data, Format, and Flow

The book offers great data for the reader/listener to process however needed to be most beneficial. Listening at 1.5x speed is a great pace to recognize trends and themes emerging from all of the different morning routines presented, and start materializing a personal perspective about your own routine, and what that already looks like or could look like.

inspiring

if you are looking for a book to see what other people do for their morning routine, or are looking for motivation to create a better routine then check this book out. the voices are good too. in my opinion is it a bit over priced, bit I'm still glad i got it.

sharing of vivid experience from people

the experience from people with different occupations and diffence stages of life or career is very inspirational

Enjoyable but somewhat one noted

I enjoyed this and would recommend it but be aware that a lot of the interviews are similar and it felt like a lot of the people worked for themselves so they have a lot more freedom in their morning. Despite not being a parent I felt I related more with their more hectic mornings.