Habits are like dominoes.
Once one falls into place, the rest follow.
👋🏼 Hey, I’m Anna! I’m a founder and operator in an ongoing relationship with writing. Welcome to my weekly newsletter where I share business, career and life lessons that I’ve learned over years of trying hard, failing often, and on occasion, succeeding too.
I have zero discipline when it comes to waking up early.
I have visions of the type of person I could be; the me who awakens chirpily at 6am, meditates as the sun rises, and sips on my green tea as I manifest my dreams into existence.
Instead, my standard morning routine is to snooze my alarm once, twice, and even thrice. Once I am sufficiently traumatised from the loud beeps piercing through my skull, I open my eyes, turn off the alarm completely, and immediately check email and Slack to see what’s come in overnight.
I work with startups across many time zones, so am inevitably greeted by a barrage of urgent requests, actions, and fires to put out. Once I see these to-dos there is no turning back. There is no green tea. There is no morning manifesting. Rather, I enter robot mode and within three minutes I’m at the desk firing Slacks left right and centre, bashing through action item after action item as my caffeine starved neurones try to keep up. Before I know it, it’s noon and my entire day is derailed before it’s had the chance to begin.
You don’t need to be a scientist to know this is the unhealthiest morning routine going round. It is truly diabolical. But my brain simply cannot help itself - if it sees something to be done it must do it immediately. Before 9am my natural bias towards action is a goddamn curse.
Over the last few months, motivated by the knowledge that if I continue on this path I will run myself into the ground (I’ve been down this road before, ladies and gents), I’ve been experimenting with ways to re-engineer my morning behaviour to be healthier and happier. Here’s what I’ve learned so far.
The downward spiral.
Habits are like dominoes; a negative one can influence other behaviour and turn into many, many more. Take my morning routine:
Scrolling first thing, leads to…
Seeing work emails and requests, which leads to…
Creating a mental to do list before jumping out of bed, which leads to…
Anxiety! Stress! Horror! Panic! Feeling behind! Which leads to…
Rushing to my desk, which leads to…
Putting out fires, which leads to…
Realising it’s 2pm and I haven’t eaten or left the house…
…you get the picture.
This set of behaviours is clearly problematic but the impact isn’t only felt in the mornings. Picking up that damn black square first thing wreaks havoc in other areas of my life. It impacts my ability to do deep creative work, my mental sharpness when mentoring founders or working with clients, the quality of my writing and my general state of mind. Here’s how:
If I look at my phone in the morning, I jump straight into work mode, which means…
I don’t carve out any morning time for writing or deep, creative work, which leads to…
Creative work being put on the back burner during the day, which leads to…
Having to rally and do it until midnight and/or on the weekends, which leads to…
Saying no to week-night or weekend hangs with friends and family because I’m catching up on stuff, which leads to…
Feeling guilty about working too much and being a shit friend, which leads to…
Feeling emotionally drained at the end of every day, which leads to…
Scrolling mindlessly through Reels as a means of revenge bedtime procrastination, which leads to…
Waking up groggy in the morning and reaching for my phone…
…and so the cycle repeats.
These things can spiral out of control without you even noticing - it’s happened to me before in the blink of an eye. But fortunately it’s not all bad news.
Moving on up.
Just like negative habits can spiral into a set of unhealthy behaviours, one positive change can set off a chain reaction leading to many more positive changes in your life. For example:
Going to the gym each day, leads to…
Eating less junk food, which leads to…
Having more energy, which leads to…
Getting up earlier…
…and so on and so forth.
This is empowering because it means that instead of trying to change every single unhealthy behaviour at once, I can focus on just one: the core habit (morning phone time) that creates a domino effect for all the others.
Over the last few months I’ve run lots of experiments to change my morning madness. I tried willpower (that didn’t work). I tried putting time limits on my apps (I simply ignored them). I tried leaving my phone on do not disturb (that worked for about 3 days). I tried promising myself that I’d get up and meditate first thing (lol, no). Then I tried something so simple it’s almost laughable - I moved my phone charger out of my bedroom and into the office. And it bloody worked.
It’s stopped me from scrolling at night because my phone is out of sight. I’m going to bed at a reasonable hour. I’m waking up earlier feeling energised. I’m going for walks first thing. I’m writing this newsletter before jumping into anything else. There are no 6am sun salutations yet, but I feel so much better now prioritising the things that matter most.
Connect the dots.
I believe we all have that one core habit that can make or break our day.
Mine’s keeping my phone out of the bedroom at night. If I do, my actions cascade in a positive direction. My energy levels increase, I get up earlier, I start the day on my terms, I write more, work more effectively, and generally feel happier and more at peace. If I don’t, my actions cascade in the opposite direction. I become reactive, have less time for deep work, sacrifice time with friends and family, and get burnt out.
If you want to change your life, start by identifying your core habit. Connect the dots. Retrace your steps. See where the domino line starts. It might be exercising first thing. It might be eating a nutritious dinner. It might be writing a to do list for the following day before you go to sleep. Whatever it is, let go of trying to change anything else and focus on just that instead. Then, watch the effects of your efforts compound.
We all have sets of dominoes in life. But the direction yours fall is up to you.
👀 What’s a core habit of yours that impacts all the others?
Let us know in the comments below.
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I love this article, makes such sense and is simple. It is not overwhelming to change 1 habit. Mine is the phone. If I don’t scroll on my phone at night I get more sleep. Reading instead of scrolling on my phone feels healthy, scrolling feels like junk food. I am going to move the phone out of the bedroom. Thanks for the inspiration ❤️
This rings so true! This year I've kept my phone away from the bedroom and it really does change a LOT of things