My morning routine

So I've really avoided making a morning routine video, specifically because I feel like there's just so many of them on YouTube, and I feel like morning routines are generally overrated. You know, everyone's seen thumbnails on YouTube of like, "The One Morning Routine That Will Change Your Life." Actually, that sounds like something that I would make: "Elon Musk Morning Routine Revealed," "The Secret Morning Routine of Every Billionaire Who Ever Lived." Apparently, they all did this one morning routine, and it's the reason they're successful.

But at the same time, though, there's a reason I'm making this video, and it's because if there's one thing that my life has been lacking in the past year or so, it's been structure. I feel like a lot of people have felt the same way. It's kind of a meme that people don't really know what day it is half the time, and I think people are starting to realize that it feels good to have to be somewhere, you know? To have responsibilities, to have appointments and meetings; it makes you feel more human.

So if our life circumstances have presented a situation where there's a way less structure, I think it's important that we invite more structure and more responsibility into our life voluntarily. One of the main ways that I started to do that in my life was by actually adding a morning routine. Having a game plan every time I wake up and having a sequence of events that I partake in both makes me feel like I'm starting the day on the right foot and that I'm kind of contributing to society and moving my life forward.

So this video is kind of going over what I do, and hopefully, it'll give you some ideas as to what you can start doing to add more structure into your life and gain momentum. You know, get the ball moving again. So every morning, I wake up at 9:00 a.m. and right off the bat, that's not that early, but I'm a huge night owl. If left to my own devices, I'll fall asleep around 3 a.m. every single night.

So after I wake up, the most important thing I do—or not do—is I don't look at my phone. I don't go on social media; I won't go on Reddit, I won't go on Facebook, I won't go on Instagram. I grab my gray hoodie off the little closet door in my room and I march downstairs. After I walk downstairs, I'll walk into the kitchen where I'll start boiling the water for coffee, and while that's heating up, I'll down a large glass of cold water. Allegedly, this gets your metabolism going or something, which doesn't really make sense to me because there's no calories in water.

But at the very least, it kind of wakes you up, you know? A cold glass of water in the morning will wake you up—maybe because it makes your brain cold or something. Anyways, I also down an Athletic Greens shake. They're not sponsoring this video or anything; that's just the brand I'm using right now. I might switch to another one; you never know.

I also have two drops of this vitamin D complex, and I use the green shake to wash down my medicinal mushroom blend of lion's mane, reishi, and cordyceps; I think that's how you pronounce it. I don't really know if any of this does anything, but I'm a lifelong sucker for pretending that it does. So after the water's done boiling, I'll use an AeroPress to squeeze out a nice juicy cup of coffee.

I think AeroPress makes really great coffee, even better than pour over, and I know I'm triggering like everybody from Portland. Sometimes, if I'm feeling really fancy, I'll add a tablespoon of MCT oil and I will blend it. So I got this nice blended MCT oily coffee; allegedly, this kind of bulletproof coffee increases gray matter in the brain or something. I don't even know if that's true, but I find that the most useful part of making coffee like this is that it helps stave off hunger.

And hunger is extremely distracting when I'm writing. So when all that's done, I walk into my office, I sit down on my chair, I light a candle, I put my hood up, I set a timer for one hour, and I write. Like a monk praying at the chapel at dawn, writing for one hour every single morning is something that I'm starting to take almost religiously seriously.

The whole idea around this odd sequence of events is that it's all surrounding a central activity—it's an almost sacred ritualistic act that prepares the way for the main event, which is writing. And there's a reason why I've chosen writing as the central activity instead of, you know, editing or shooting b-roll or responding to emails. It's because I've identified writing as the backbone of my entire career. Without me putting pen to paper or finger to keyboard, I will have nothing to talk about in front of the camera, which means I'll have nothing to edit and nothing to upload.

When I have a script or a set of ideas that I think is really tight and that I'm really proud of, I'm infinitely more excited to talk about it and share my thoughts in front of the camera. And if I think what I'm sharing in front of the camera is super tight and well thought out, then I'm infinitely more likely to not procrastinate the living out of editing it! Even shooting the b-roll is way more fun when I know the overall product is something that I'm really proud of.

So the overall fulfillment of my life and what I do on a day-to-day basis rides pretty heavily on me doing a good job of the writing. Unfortunately though, writing is also something I hate doing. Ever since I started this channel, writing has been the thorn in my side; it's the thing that I procrastinate the most, by far. Mostly because, compared to being all cinematic and artsy with my b-roll and editing funny memes into my edit—editing funny memes into my editing—writing is super, like, excruciatingly mundane in comparison. You're just sitting there hitting your fingers against plastic trying to siphon out some kind of gold, but it's usually coal—that's the narrative I have in my head anyways.

And it's this narrative of writing being dreadful that adds a lot of fuel to this feeling of resistance—the resistance that stops me from just sitting down and working. And the longer I put it off, the more the resistance grows in power. Before I made writing the first thing that I do every single morning, I'd postpone writing for as long as possible—hours and hours, days and days. I would do every single other thing other than just sitting down and writing.

But the hilarious thing is, it's actually not that hilarious—it's just sad. The resistance I feel towards writing is a lot more unpleasant than the writing itself. Once I start writing, it's actually quite pleasant and peaceful. And dare I say, I actually really enjoy it. You know, it's kind of sucky at first, maybe for the first five or ten minutes, but very soon after, I've settled down, my brain has slowed down, and I get into the flow every single time. It's like clockwork.

Which has really made me realize that a lot of the time, the resistance that we feel towards doing the most important thing that we have to do in a day is more unpleasant than just doing the thing itself. And if we eventually have to do the thing itself after a long enough timeline, then why add all of this suffering in between? Before we just engage with the suffering of action, it's like suffering twice. Why suffer twice when you can just suffer once?

And when you structure your day like this, you know, you wake up, you do these fancy things to set the stage for this important thing that you have to do, and you get in the habit of actually doing this thing every single morning, there's a certain level of existential security that you'll start to feel. You know, you don't have this dark cloud looming over your head all the time—you will live most of the day as somebody who has done that thing already rather than someone who has to do that thing.

You know, maybe you're working a job that you don't really like and you have this side hustle that you keep on fantasizing about as your way out. Schedule one hour to work on it every single morning—non-negotiable. Or maybe you're enjoying your career, and you have to show up to work in a brick-and-mortar building, but usually, you have tasks to do, and you should do the most important task first.

Doing the most important thing that you have to do every single morning—getting that fat ass monkey off your back and throwing it to the side—or killing it. But it's kind of an immortal monkey because you kill it one day, and it'll show up the next day. But if you get in the habit of doing that, you'll start to walk around life with the exaggerated swagger of a monkey-killing psychopath! You'll just feel so good! You'll free up so much time later in the day to learn new things, and there's no better way to learn new things than by using today's video sponsor, Skillshare.

For those of you who don't know, Skillshare is an online learning community with thousands of classes covering dozens of topics—everything from creative writing to photography to how to cook like a chef and how to edit like a professional editor. No matter what you're into or what you want to learn, Skillshare probably has a class for it, and chances are it's also extremely practical because every single class on Skillshare is designed for real life.

It's so easy to take whatever you're learning on Skillshare and apply it to your real-life pursuits, which is exactly why I'm taking yet another photography class on Skillshare. I have my Fujifilm camera, and I really want to take it out more and work on my composition. The classes on Skillshare are often really inspiring. There are so many talented instructors on there and they really get me just craving the outdoors and wanting to shoot everything that moves with a camera.

Skillshare is also extremely affordable; with the annual membership, it comes in at less than ten dollars a month. So it's kind of a no-brainer. The first 1,000 of you who click the link in the description below will get a free trial of a Skillshare premium membership. So use the link down below; dive into your first class on Skillshare, learn something new, explore your creativity, and as usual, have a great time!

If you like this video, make sure you hit like, because when you hit like, the algorithm blesses me and it shoves my bald head into other people's home pages, helping them out, and it also helps me out. And if they're gonna get a notification on their phone, it might as well be about content telling them to not spend so much time on their phone.

And if you watch Better Ideas regularly and you say to yourself, "This is kind of a cool channel, Joey seems like a cool guy," why don't you subscribe to my second channel? You know, check that out. I've been posting there every single week. I have a show called "Joey Answers Your Questions: The Show." It's extremely me; it's a lot more laid back, but I'm personally having a great time with the videos, and you guys seem to be having a great time too.

We also have a Better Ideas subreddit! You guys are posting tons of memes there, and I will react to them on the second channel, and I have been reacting to them on the second channel. The links for those are in the description or probably on this video somewhere. Other than that, thanks so much for watching, and we'll catch you in the next video!