6 years ago my morning routine was this:
Wake up
Have breakfast while watching the news
Get through my 1-hour commute to work scrolling through Instagram
Work 9 hours
Go home
Eat
Watch Netflix (while scrolling Instagram) until I couldn’t keep my eyes open.
I kept doing this for months and months, over and over again.
I couldn’t concentrate on anything.
I had anxiety coming out of every pore on my skin.
I wanted to change, but I was clueless. I didn't know what was wrong.
Over the years I managed to get my anxiety slightly more under control.
And after testing a bunch of strategies, these are the top 5 that helped me the most.
#1. No artificial sugar
It’s Wednesday 11am and I’m bored at home.
Luckily there’s a jar of dopamine in the kitchen.
I open the vegan Nutella and I eat a scoop. 30 minutes later, I’m halfway down the jar, not sure how I ate that fast.
The sugar rush comes in. It’s followed by a dopamine crash.
I feel disgusted. I drink 5 glasses of water because I think it’ll help my body absorb less of the sh*t I just ate. The rest of the day is destroyed. I can’t focus. I finish work at 6pm. I prefer to watch another forgettable TV show on Netflix rather than going to the gym.
1 hour goes by. It’s 7pm and I’m hungry as f*ck.
I’m craving dopamine. I open the fridge and there’s rice, beans, and vegetables for dinner. I’m not exactly mouthwatering.
“Maybe I should order some Thai food…”
As you can tell, I made one bad decision after the next. My day went from OK to downhill hell in 30 minutes. And my productivity went down with it.
And this happens every time I stuff my face with artificial sugar.
But…
I don't think it's sugar itself. Sure, the white powder is bad enough. But the main issue is the mindset it brings.
It gives me an excuse to slack.
You eat something you shouldn’t. You slack. In your head, you’re already convincing yourself to “work harder tomorrow”.
Next day arrives. You’re still making up excuses.
Then a month goes by and you’re still trying to get back to your diet. But now it’s much harder. So you don’t even bother trying.
And if you’re failing at your diet, you don’t have motivation to keep following the plan for other areas of your life.
But when I don’t eat sugar, everything is easier.
Because when you don’t eat sugar, you don’t have to compensate. When you don’t have to compensate you don’t need to fool yourself into working harder the next day. When you don’t have to work harder the next day, you have to move yourself forward instead of playing catch-up.
If you want to get a grip on your day, avoid processed sweets like the plague. And watch your self-control improve.
#2. No social media in the morning
I quit Instagram 2 years ago.
I still have it on my phone. But it’s hidden away on my 5th screen. So I never see it.
I also hide it from any search on my phone (out of sight, out of mind).
But sometimes I get curious. FOMO (fear of missing out) takes over and I get desperate to see what’s happening out there.
For example, when Russia invaded Ukraine, first thing I did was to go on Reddit r/Europe to see what was going on.
Hundreds of comments. It took me an hour to read them all.
Then I went to my Reddit feed. Another half hour watching endless videos on r/InterestingAsFuck.
And you know what’s the worst part of this habit?
I did it in the morning. The golden hours.
I let the early screen time destroy the next 12 hours of productivity time.
When you wake up, your brain is clean. Ready to start the day. Then you open Instagram, X, or (and) TikTok and you open the dopamine gates.
Now your brain has so much dopamine that you can’t concentrate on simple tasks.
Whenever I start my day using X, my distraction shoots through the roof. I can’t even make breakfast without forgetting what goes next on the plate. And the entire day goes like this. Can’t write. Can’t think. Can’t concentrate.
Dopamine frenzy is too much for my stupid brain.
It consumes my life. It drains my energy like I haven’t slept in 3 days.
So what do I do now?
I put my phone in the living room before I go to bed. And I stay the f*ck away from social media and other high dopamine activities in the morning. This means:
No Reddit, IG, YouTube
No Junk Food
No Netflix
Don’t waste your mornings filling your clean brain with useless content that won’t change your life. Start your day by working on yourself. Notifications can wait.
#3. Walk outside and breathe fresh air
I work from home 3 days a week.
And during winter, it’s hard to convince myself to leave my wonderful heating system to go outside and freeze to death.
So what do I do? I stay at home, sitting in front of my computer for 6 hours straight.
And before I know it, it's 3pm. And I'm stressed as f*ck.
It's hard to see it coming. You start the day fine. You get stuff done.
Then something changes. You start to open too many tabs. You can’t figure out how to finish your tasks. They start to pile up. You push on because you’re behind. 1 hour goes by and you’re still on the same task.
But it’s easy to avoid getting stuck in this hell cycle.
You only need to do one thing.
Stop and go outside (well… it’s technically 2).
And my rule for this is simple. If I can’t concentrate for more than 10 minutes, it’s time to give my brain a break.
I go outside and I walk for 20-30 minutes.
No podcasts. No audiobooks. No content of any kind.
Just pure walking.
And when I come back from a walk, it's like I've pumped new life into a rotten day.
It processes all the sh*t you’ve consumed and gives your brain a reset. A clean slate to start fresh in the afternoon.
If you think your focus is out the window, your anxiety is booming, and you can’t get stuff done, just stop and go outside. And feel your body recharge with every step.
#4. Write down all the sh*t in your head
3 weeks ago I was pissed.
I went to bed pissed.
You know what happened?
I slept like sh*t.
2am. 3am. 5am. Every time I looked at the clock I got even more pissed because I couldn't sleep for more than 2 hours.
Do you know why that happened?
Because I didn't take 10 minutes of my evening to write down what was pissing me off.
I let it simmer. I let a small problem simmer for so long it turned into a nightmare.
Next evening, same thing happened. I started to get pissed about the same issue (it's hard to let go...)
But before I went into the shower I dumped all my feelings into my phone. I opened my notes app and started typing. 5 minutes later, my mind was blank. I had nothing else to write. All my frustrations gone from my head and stored inside a note I’ll never read again.
5 minutes. It’s all it took to get 8 hours of good sleep.
9,600% ROI (return on investment). That’s a pretty good investment if you ask me...
But it won’t work if you’re holding back. You gotta write exactly how you feel. Like you don’t give a f*ck because no one’s ever gonna read it.
And there are 2 good reasons for dumping your worries into your phone:
You stop the hell cycle of going over the same problem 15 times. It gives your brain time to chill and process your feelings. Like a pressure release that’s only activated when you write down your feelings.
It gives your future self a chance to laugh at what you wrote. When I look back at what I wrote, I know it was stupid. Such a small problem turned into a nightmare. But only in my head. And I wrote it down because I was having a shitty day. Now 3 weeks later, it doesn’t make sense I was so pissed. But I don’t care. I’ve moved on.
Next time you're feeling like sh*t, pissed off at life, or at someone, pull out your phone and start writing. Only stop when there’s nothing left to simmer.
#5. Have the same breakfast every day
Each decision you make uses brain power.
But modern life doesn’t care. It will keep shoving decisions for you to make down your throat:
Should I open Instagram, WhatsApp, or Gmail?
Should I wear a pink, blue, or dark green shirt?
Should I take the bus, train, or car to work?
Too many decisions. 99% useless.
And the thing is… there are only so many good decisions you can make before you start making bad ones.
And when you waste decision power like it’s just air you breathe, you’re setting yourself up for failure.
I know you can’t control every decision you can make. But there’s one thing you can do to remove another 100 decisions from your day.
Have the same breakfast. Every. Single. Day.
It’s beautiful. My mornings are as smooth as watching seals swimming on the coast.
No need to check what’s in your kitchen so you can plan a meal
No need to decide what you’re in the mood for
No need to plan ahead
And this works if you’re stressed, exhausted, or have all the time in the world to make your breakfast.
For me, breakfast looks like this:
Banana
Rolled Oats
Blueberry + Raspberry
Sunflower seeds
Ground flaxseeds
Walnuts
Ground cinnamon on top
7 ingredients. All I need is a fork and a plate (yes… I’ve optimized my breakfast so I have less dirty dishes to wash).
It doesn't matter what diet you're following. You do you.
What matters is choosing one easy breakfast. And removing a whole bunch of decisions that come with it.
And when you have less decisions to make, life gets easier. When life gets easier, you have more time to focus on what matters. When you have more time to focus on what matters, you make better decisions.
Don’t waste precious brain power or life energy on useless decisions. Use it to move your life forward.
What this means for you
My life is better because of these tiny changes.
It’s not just about feeling more focused.
It’s about feeling in control of your decisions.
A quick recap:
No sugar
No social media in the morning
Walk outside
Write things down
Eat the same breakfast
What other habits do you think are important to keep you more focused? Let me know in the comments.
Got a question for me? Leave a comment below. Or hit me up on X (Twitter).