I heard this phrase in a podcast recently and I want to acknowledge its simple brilliance.

You ever feel like you’re super disciplined and consistent – like not even leaving the house for days, just straight grindin’ – but then sometimes you find yourself slipping out of the routine and wonder what the hell happened?

Updated: October 20th, 2017

I like to start the day clear and creative – No cell phone, no emails, no “work”. Wake up early and spend some quality time with yourself and your creative brain.

I’ve found that if I start the day awesomely, I’m happier and have more energy, and the day continues it’s awesomeness through nightfall. If I start the day by sleeping in, browsing social media, checking emails, “swallowing the frog”, etc… I’m not too stoked on it and it carries over to the rest of the day.

Current Morning Routine

1. Wake up at 6:30am. Even if I went to bed late, get up every day at 6:30 – get up with the Earth. Sometimes I’ll nap later
2. Drink some cold water. Brush teeth. Take a cold shower – this makes me jump haha way to get the charge!
3. Stretch, breath deeply, and enjoy the calm of the morning
4. Make some tea or yerba mate and write for a few minutes
5. Work on my key creative task for the day (written on paper the night before)
6. Snack on some raw vegetables and/or fruit, and a handful of nuts
7. Around 9am I’ll turn on my phone and start the workday. I try to stack creative tasks in the morning, and save any admin or collaborative work for later
8. I’ll smash out work until about 1 or 2 and then hit the gym or go for a run. Having that mid day exercise break, and already accomplishing a solid work day is a great feeling man!

I love my mornings, the peace time for creativity is epic! It’s now my favorite time of the day (and I’m a chronic night owl).

The key to this is not turning your phone on your checking email until after you’ve had your morning creative time. I do this by setting my phone to airplane mode the night before, and not opening email tabs or chat apps.

Plastic sucks! Well, it’s quite useful but we’ve gotten too dependent on it, and pretty wasteful with single use plastic. Plastic straws, cups, bags, cutlery… all these get used once, then thrown away, which ends up in the ocean or somewhere on Earth to pollute for 100’s or 1000’s of years. Boooooooooo.

The Challenge

Plastic Free July is a monthly challenge to save the world!

What do you really want?

That’s a great question, something I’ve started asking myself every day. I tend to work on too many things at once. I get excited working on new projects, I can’t help myself! I think I just love the energy of creating new things… and the buzz of launching a new idea.

I created a method to remind myself every day on the most important things to work on.

The Importance of Setting Goals

You’ve heard it a thousand times, but it’s worth thinking about every day. Because if you set goals you’ve already determined your success, you just need to execute.

I love positive habits. I think positive habits are the key to success. Once something is a habit you don’t have to think about it, you just naturally do it and reap the benefits.

Adding new positive habits is a great way to continue leveling up. Some of my current positive habits:

Image: a rocky oasis at Ob Kahn Nation Park near Chiang Mai, Thailand

New Positive Habit: Take a day off every week and completely disconnect, go airplane mode, and spend time in nature.

I used to spend days straight wandering in the forest, and maaaaan you can really get deep into your own mind. Right now I’m working so much that taking a few days off takes some planning, but taking 1 day off is doable! As an ambitious entrepreneur your todo list is infinite, it can be easy to get stuck in a routine of working 7 days a week, but it’s important to schedule disconnect time to get out of the grind, open your mind, and free your body from the shackles of the internet.