Start your day with intention by creating a slow morning routine: It builds confidence and momentum to your day without the pull to be super productive.

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Wake up. Check the time. Smash the snooze button (you have 5 more minutes to sleep anyway). Do this two or three more times.

Grab your phone. Check notifications. Immediately start scrolling your social media drug of choice.

Maybe comment on a birthday thread or start going down a rabbit hole of why your third cousin wrote that cryptic post (“Was it about that guy she was dating? Haven’t seen him in a while.”).

Finally crawl out of bed and jolt yourself into action because now you realize you’re running a tad late. Again.

A few sips of coffee. Quick wardrobe change. Breakfast for the kids. Protein bar or piece of toast for you as you all scramble out of the door while checking emails on your phone.

Now the rest of your day feels like an emergency.

You’re late and hustling to get everyone to school and to the office on time. Everything feels urgent. Frantic.

You can’t seem to get control back in your day from this point on.

This routine chaos continues daily until it builds into a default setting of constant exhaustion, overwhelm, frustration and then eventually hopelessness.

You feel like you have nothing to wake up for, which gives more reason to just keep smashing that snooze button.

It’s imperative to break this cycle otherwise you slowly regress into the Non-Playable Character role of that person just robotically reacting to life, never truly experiencing it.

It’s slow death.

This scenario is more common than you think. And it’s completely avoidable.

Even with the most minimal approaches to a productive morning routine, you could feel so much better.

But today, we’re not going to talk about how to cram a bunch of things into the first hours of your day; I’m going to take a different approach.

Instead, I want to encourage you to adopt a slow morning routine: one that energizes you and gives you reason to wake up every day without smashing that snooze button.

Let’s get into it.

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What is a slow morning routine?

We’ve lost the plot on creating a healthy, productive and worthwhile morning routine.

The productivity gurus and online bros took it over and completely turned into this chase for optimizing everything.

They took the damn fun out of it.

I’m here to simplify this so you can avoid the overwhelm you face when you consult Google on “how to have a great morning ritual.”

At its core, developing a healthy morning routine is just about setting the intention for a good start to your day.

Whatever it is that you need to do (or would like to) that brings some peace, calm and clarity to your mornings that build momentum to have more confidence to carry out your day of work, emails, slack notifications, kids, school requests, extracurricular activities and dinner plans.

That’s it.

For some, that means doing a bunch of stuff and being super creative.

Others may need a much slower approach of just mindfulness or maybe light movement.

And then there’s the group that wants to start their day with a sweat session to get the endorphins pumping.

It’s all good. They are all effective as long as this works for you.

A healthy slow morning routine does not have to be what the gurus preach

Morning routines do not have to be filled with these elaborate, time-sucking series of events that the internet bros say bring you optimized health and productivity.

A morning routine is not about slamming as much work before sunrise as possible.

They don’t have to be reserved for 1-percent douchebags and your capitalist overlords.

Morning routines are for leaders and high performers.

And here’s the thing: If you’ve got kids, you are a high performer.

If you are a living, breathing human with responsibilities, you are a leader of your own life.

You either prioritize your own time, or someone else will do it for you.

And because of this, you need a morning routine.

When you are in charge of your morning, you feel like you are in more control of your entire day.

You’ll have more clarity towards your goals because you’ve set a game plan the previous night and you’ve been able to get a start on that momentum as soon as you wake up.

Productivity
You are in control of your schedule and thus, you can avoid letting your schedule control you.

Better relationships
Whenever I break my one slow morning rule and allow my kids to wake me up (or if they decide to wreck my morning by waking up way earlier than normal), I immediately feel the anxiety level rise higher than usual. I’m less patient (especially with my kids) and I’m more likely to rage out for no reason.

Confidence
Having more calm and peace to start our day and doing so with a sense of accomplishment towards a goal (no matter how big or small) builds confidence in ourselves.

You can do hard things. You can do small things. You can do anything.

Peace
Cortisol levels are at their peak as we first wake up. And we do ourselves no favors by slamming more anxiety into the system with hurried, unstructured mornings and immediate heavy doses of sugar and caffeine.

Positivity. Confidence. Peace. Momentum that builds throughout the day. All benefits of implementing a slow morning routine.

How I developed my own slow morning routine after years of productivity hacks …

My mornings used to look like waking up at 5:15 a.m. and immediately powering up my computer to begin work.

I was convinced that the gurus were right: The most productive people were the ones that dove into their biggest projects first thing in the morning before the sun was up.

When I was in sports journalism, there was always the cliche that you can’t win a game in the first quarter, but you could certainly lose one. Basically, if you don’t start a game off on the right foot, it could snowball quickly and you’d fall behind the score so much that it would be insurmountable to come back.

I felt the same way about being productive to start my day.

And this would go well on most mornings. But I noticed a crucial thing: My kids would pop out of bed super early and disrupt my work and I would get pissed off as a result. I had to make a change.

It was then that I realized, there was nothing magical about crushing a To Do list before the sun rises; and that since my kids were now school age, there was no rush to crush.

So I slowed my morning routine down. Way down.

You do not have to copy any of this routine. This is what works for me. My goal here is to provide some inspiration for you and show you that it doesn’t have to be all about productivity and doing a bunch of stuff.

My current slow morning routine looks a lot different now. And it includes a little bit of everything:

I’m up at 5:15 a.m. and I immediately go for a 25-30 minute walk. During that time, I’m listening to something educational like a nonfiction audiobook or a podcast. This is part of my daily commitment to learning something as part of my four pillars to reinvention in my 40s.

When I get back from my walk, I’ll settle in with some deep breathing or meditation. I use the Calm App to guide me on this.

From there, I’ll pick up my book and read for about 15 minutes or until my kids wake up (whichever comes first).

By now it’s about 6:45 a.m. and that’s when the kids will get up to get ready for school.

While they eat breakfast and I wait for my coffee to finish brewing (I’m not a fancy influencer who has time for pour-over coffee, I have a regular old coffee maker … sorry) I’ll do some light mobility for a few minutes.

I’m working on loosening up my hips and spine with some of my movements first thing. Both are incredibly important functions that we must preserve as we get older #UseItOrLoseIt

From there, it’s into your more standard morning rush. Which I am now primed and ready to tackle because I’ve eased into my day.

My wife and I work together to get the kids fed, dressed and out the door on time to school.

Usually my wife handles drop-off and I take on pick-up. So as the family leaves for the day around 8:00 a.m., it signals the official start to my workday at home.

And that’s when I settle into my work for the day which begins with a 60-minute writing session.

I feel primed and ready to go at that point since I’ve been reading and consuming relevant things all morning.

Here’s how you are going to create your own slow morning routine

The best morning routine starts the night before.

If your sleep is out of whack, there’s simply no way that you’re going to be rested enough to do whatever it is that you have set out to accomplish the next morning.

Most adults are not getting enough sleep, which is 7-9 hours as recommended by the CDC.

Make sure you are doing the math on when you go to bed versus when you plan to wake up so you satisfy that 7-9 hour nightly recommendation of rest.

Put the phone away. That’ll help.

Next you need to determine what you want to do with your mornings.

What is the purpose and intent of the ritual?

To get a few things done before the chaos of the day takes hold?

Study? Read? Write?

To just get a few minutes of peace and quiet?

To develop more of a spiritual start to your day?

Maybe to get some physical activity in and hit that workout first thing so it’s not hanging over you the rest of the day?

Or perhaps it’s a collection of all of the above and you’d like to overhaul your entire approach.

A lot of people think they’re going to jump right into some full on new aggressive workout program and head to their gym at 4:46 a.m.

And then they find themselves hitting the snooze button for the next month having never made it to that Sweatin’ with Traci HIIT class.

In other words, be realistic about what you can and will do with this new slow morning routine. And start slow.

When do I wake up for a slow morning routine?

There’s some science around this, actually. A 2021 study revealed that waking up just one hour earlier was associated with a lower depression rate by about 23-percent.

But, that can be absolutely daunting to just jolt yourself awake 60 minutes earlier than you are used to doing.

Instead, work up to it.

Start by waking up just 15 minutes earlier this week. Do that for a few weeks and then slowly add more, as needed or desired.

You might get all you need out of just 15 minutes of extra time to yourself.

Hell, 15 minutes every single day is about 90 hours over the course of an entire year. You can get a lot done in 90 hours of focus.

A good morning routine starts the night before

Ever wake up and have that anxiety over what the hell it is that you should be doing? So then you sit down and start writing out your To Do List for more clarity.

This is okay. But you can do better.

I like setting my To Do List the night before.

This has two distinct benefits:

1. I’m alleviating that anxiety over laying in bed wondering what the hell I need to do tomorrow and losing potential sleep over it.

2. As soon as I wake up, I have an action plan that I can attack right away.

I have writing prompts ready for me to jump into. My projects that I’m working on are mapped out with where I need to tackle.

My calendar is time-blocked out so I have clarity on how long to commit to each action item throughout my day.

Take one or two things that you need to prioritize for your day and map them out the night before.

This helps alleviate those anxieties over all of the things that you think you might need to do the next day when you’re lying in bed.

You already know what you need to do, because it’s been mapped out, so you can rest peacefully knowing you have a game plan ready as you wake up.

I guarantee you’ll sleep a tad better and have more intention to start your slow morning routine off on the right foot as soon as you get up.

Build momentum (it can be your frog, or even a tadpole)

The productivity gurus tell you to tackle your most important task first thing when you wake up.

This is commonly referred to as eating the frog and it comes from a quote by Mark Twain:

“If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And If it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.”

– Mark Twain

Somewhere, productivity gurus hijacked this quote and interpreted it to mean you must do your most important work first thing in the morning.

But honestly, it doesn’t have to be that complicated.

It can be as simple as just building momentum.

When anxiety is high, action can help alleviate it. Any action.

So if you can’t solve all of the world’s problems before the sun rises, don’t just throw your hands up and declare that morning routines don’t work for you.

Maybe building momentum for you is just doing one or two small tasks that help you cross a couple of things off of your To Do List.

Just try to avoid social media and if at all possible, limit the morning tasks to things that don’t involve email.

Ideally, you’d like the slow morning routine to be something that allows you to completely focus on something that maybe you wouldn’t be able to focus on later in the day.

But again, find what works best for you … not what some rando internet dude said.

The rules to a slow morning routine

I’m certainly not going to get preachy about doing cold exposure and a bunch of other time-sucking things to start your day.

However, I do think there are a few things that a healthy and productive slow morning routine should include to help get off on the right foot.

Think to our key four principles about actualizing a meaningful and fulfilling life:

• One that challenges the body
• One that challenges the mind
• One that builds and nurtures relationships
• One that encourages and promotes play and relaxation

Your morning routine should include at least one of those pillars.

And it could look a little bit like:

One that challenges the body
Walking … yoga … 5 minutes of mobility

One that challenges the mind
Reading … working on a course … listening to nonfiction audiobook or podcast

One that builds and nurtures relationships
Breakfast with your family … avoid the phone and text/email to spend quality morning time with your loved ones … OR text/reach out to one person that means a lot to you or that you haven’t touched base with in a while

One that encourages and promotes play and relaxation
Read for pleasure … do the crossword puzzle (preferably not on technology if possible)

You can get creative with it. But, build momentum on those four pillars to really take your slow morning routine to the next level.

Eliminate distractions

Put the phone and social media away until you’ve satisfied your slow morning routine goals.

There is no need to be checking in on rando strangers and/or doom scrolling before you’ve even had your first sip of coffee.

If this is a problem for you and you’ve adopted the bad habit of reaching for your phone before you even get out of your own bed … then we need to think about how to change that.

We know from BJ Fogg, author of the book, Tiny Habits, that a habit (in this case, looking at your phone as soon as you wake up) can be broken down into the formula B = MAP.

• B = your behavior, in this case simply reaching for the phone
• M = your motivation to reach for the phone
• A = ability to do the behavior, it’s super easy to reach for the phone
• P = the prompt or the trigger to do the habit, which is you waking up

The solution is to break up that pattern.

And a simple switch is to place your phone out of arms’ reach. In this case, you’ve altered the prompt or the trigger and now need extra motivation to get up and grab your phone.

Now you can redirect that energy towards a newer and more desired behavior.

This sort of habit building breaks down for any behavior that you’d like to include in your slow morning routine. 

What behaviors can you add to your slow morning routine to make them stick?

The biggest behavior that built momentum for my slow morning routine is that early morning (5:15 a.m.) walk around my Brooklyn neighborhood.

It’s been a major catalyst towards my own personal growth (and it’s helped me lean down into incredible shape at the age of 45).

And I got started with that daily habit by using the behavior formula above (B = MAP).

In my case, I set out my clothes the night beforehand to help make it as easy as possible for me to get up and hit the ground walking. 

At first, I was highly motivated to make it happen. There was clearly the ability to go walking. And my prompt was not only waking up, but then having my clothes right next to my bed. No excuses.

Over time, this new behavior became a habit. And it led to more clarity and productivity than I ever though possible. It’s also been a big reason why I’m in better shape at 45 than I was at 35.

My walk is the anchor to my slow morning routine.

Now it’s your turn to take action so you can start turning your life around.

One morning at a time.

I hope you enjoyed this newsletter. As always, if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out.

If you’re interested in working with me to get a complete body transformation program that couples minimalist training with a personalized approach to nutrition (no calorie counting here), then you should check out my Lean4Life Coaching Program.

I answer all of my emails at pete [at] petecataldo [.] com … Hit me up with the subject line “slow morning routine” and I’ll answer any questions you have to make this work for you.

Until next time,
Pete