⏰☀️☕️The morning routine: A history of the day’s opening act

Something about the early morning hours lend themselves to ritual. For early birds, the start of a new day is full of possibility, a time to reflect and prepare for the day ahead. For those who aren’t early risers by nature, the muscle memory of routine can propel us through the haze of exhaustion into the rhythm of the day. Morning routines set the tone for the day, and how we spend our days is [how we spend our lives]( thus, our [seemingly]( [insatiable]( fascination with the routines of the admired and admirable. If we start the morning with an early workout [like Barack Obama]( will we too stay calm and focused in a crisis? If we down an almond milk smoothie first thing [like Gwyneth Paltrow]( will we also have eternally glowy skin and the energy to run a pseudoscientific wellness empire? As with everything from exercise to spring cleaning, social media has turned the morning routine from a private practice into a public show of productivity. (Daily [5:30 am mindfulness practice]( anyone?) But just as there is no single path to success, there’s also no one-size-fits all morning routine—except getting out of bed, eventually. 🐦 [Tweet this!]( 🌐 [View this email on the web]( Join the next chapter of Quartz by downloading the [Quartz]( app or becoming a [member](. It’s where the future gets its news. Sponsored by [Quartz Obsession] The morning routine November 20, 2018 Rise and shine --------------------------------------------------------------- Something about the early morning hours lend themselves to ritual. For early birds, the start of a new day is full of possibility, a time to reflect and prepare for the day ahead. For those who aren’t early risers by nature, the muscle memory of routine can propel us through the haze of exhaustion into the rhythm of the day. Morning routines set the tone for the day, and how we spend our days is [how we spend our lives]( thus, our [seemingly]( [insatiable]( fascination with the routines of the admired and admirable. If we start the morning with an early workout [like Barack Obama]( will we too stay calm and focused in a crisis? If we down an almond milk smoothie first thing [like Gwyneth Paltrow]( will we also have eternally glowy skin and the energy to run a pseudoscientific wellness empire? As with everything from exercise to spring cleaning, social media has turned the morning routine from a private practice into a public show of productivity. (Daily [5:30 am mindfulness practice]( anyone?) But just as there is no single path to success, there’s also no one-size-fits all morning routine—except getting out of bed, eventually. 🐦 [Tweet this!]( 🌐 [View this email on the web]( Join the next chapter of Quartz by downloading the [Quartz]( app or becoming a [member](. It’s where the future gets its news. Reuters/Kim Hong-Ji By the digits [2:]( Number of hours former US president Barack Obama started his day before his first scheduled event [$2.61:]( Amount billionaire investor Warren Buffett spends on two sausage patties at the McDonald’s drive-thru on mornings when the market is down. (If the market is up, Buffett allows himself $3.17 for a bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit.) [3:]( Sets of 30 Kapalabhati Pranayama breaths motivational speaker Tony Robbins performs each morning [4:]( Average number of hours former UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher slept before rising at 5 am to listen to the radio program “Farming Today” [60:]( Number of individual coffee beans Ludwig van Beethoven counted into his cup each morning [125:]( Minutes of exercise actor Mark Wahlberg claims to do before 8 am every morning [3:45 am:]( Daily wake-up time of Apple CEO Tim Cook Million-dollar question What’s the best way to start a morning? --------------------------------------------------------------- We’ve been fascinated by morning routine for about as long as we’ve been watching the sun come up. Philosophers from Plato to the Stoics dispensed advice on everything from the appropriate amount of sleep to the right morning mantras, in the belief that these habits shaped character and personal conduct. The invention of the alarm clock, a roughly 1,100-year process that started with a prototype in 8th-century China and was completed with an 1847 patent in France, gave people the power to set their wakeup time to the minute and consequently set the course of their day. Keepers of morning routine say that having a go-to morning schedule cuts down on the amount of time and energy that could be frittered away deliberating what to eat for breakfast, or whether to squeeze in a morning workout. A reliable routine, early birds say, makes the most of a time of day when energy is high and potential is long, and makes the most of busy days. But what’s the best way to start a morning? While most productivity guides these days suggest some mix of mindfulness, healthy breakfast, exercise, or journaling to get the day in motion, many famous names have their own interpretations. Former UK prime minister Winston Churchill liked to stay in bed until 11 am, surrounded by newspapers and breakfast; Vogue editor Anna Wintour has played an hour of tennis and is en route to have her bob styled by 6:45 am each day. Comedian Melissa McCarthy [starts her day]( doing her favorite thing first—watching old episodes of Knight Rider or The Incredible Hulk. Sponsored by Blockchains, LLC You always wanted to change the world. --------------------------------------------------------------- Did you do it or did the world end up changing you? It's time to break away from the status quo and make new systems, new security, and new interactions. We can create a world that makes everything we do work better, using the blockchain.[Are you ready to change the world?]( Giphy Fun fact! Before cheap alarm clocks, there was the “knocker-upper”: A person hired to pound on doors or shoot pebbles at windows until their client arose from bed. The tradesmen, who [continued their work]( in the UK and Ireland until the mid-1950s, were particularly useful for working-class laborers who couldn’t afford their own watches or alarm clocks—and also couldn’t afford to be late to work. Brief history [725 AD:]( Yi Xing, an 8th-century Chinese engineer and Buddhist monk, invents an astronomical clock that involves water, gears, and puppets to rouse sleepers at the hour of their choice. [1787:]( American inventor Levi Hutchins constructs a personal alarm clock to wake him at 4 am. Hutchins has nowhere to be in the early morning hours—he just doesn’t believe in sleeping in. [1791:]( In his autobiography, American statesman Benjamin Franklin details his rigorous daily schedule, which began at 5 am with the following: “Rise, wash, and address Powerful Goodness; contrive day’s business and take the resolution of the day; prosecute the present study; and breakfast.” [1847:]( Antoine Redier of France patents the first adjustable alarm clock, which allows users to choose their own hour to rise. [1922:]( Public relations consultant Edward Bernays, nephew of Sigmund Freud, sells America on the hearty bacon breakfast. [1975:]( German manufacturer Braun produces Dieter Rams’s iconic travel alarm clock. [1989:]( The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is published. [2016:]( Actor and former pro wrestler Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson releases the Rock Clock, an app users can set to rise at the same time as the Rock (often a punishing 3:50 am). AP Photo/Matt Rourke Pop quiz Whose famous nourishing breakfast routine consists of two raw eggs in warm milk and a multivitamin? Marilyn MonroeJimmy CarterElon MuskThe Rock Correct. The actress described her morning meal to Pageant magazine in a 1952 article, “How I Stay in Shape.” Incorrect. If your inbox doesn’t support this quiz, find the solution at bottom of email. Deep thoughts Pause for reflection --------------------------------------------------------------- “For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’” the late Steve Jobs [said in 2005](. Jobs is not the only person whose choice of words in the morning mattered as much as his actions. In his autobiography, Benjamin Franklin claimed to reflect each morning [on the question]( “What good shall I do today?” (And, in the evening, on its twin: “What good have I done today?”) Oprah says she starts each morning [with the same thought]( “I’m alive. Thank you!” Giphy Day by day --------------------------------------------------------------- But, one might be tempted to say: Why bother? Why force oneself through a series of rigorous morning activity, when you could just roll out of bed and go with the flow? The writer Taffy Brodesser-Akner [admitted to as much]( in a recent interview. “I always thought that the thing that made life easier is to not have any routines, since it hurts too much to veer from them,” [she told The Cut.]( Much of what has been written about morning routines presents it in a transactional way: Wake up early and meditate, get promoted/lose weight/produce more in return. But perhaps the most elegant defense of the morning routine comes from Annie Dillard, who wrote movingly of its value [in her book]( The Writing Life (often quoted by Maria Popova [over at BrainPickings](. Dillard argues that the routine’s true value is not how it shapes a day, but how it shapes a life. “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order—willed, faked, and so brought into being; it is a peace and a haven set into the wreck of time; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself, decades later, still living. Each day is the same, so you remember the series afterward as a blurred and powerful pattern…. There is no shortage of good days. It is good lives that are hard to come by.” Quotable “When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they can’t tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own—not of the same blood or birth, but of the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me.” [—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations]( Reuters/Carlo Allegri Poll Do you have a morning routine? [Click here to vote]( Yes, and it’s the secret to my success.I try, but I stumble.Nope. Every day is different. 💬let's talk! In yesterday’s poll about [VHS]( tapes, 52% of you said you keep some on hand (irreplaceable recordings and home movies). 📧 Jim wrote: “Great story. As a side note (possibly buried in your ‘handful of preceding attempts’ comment), the Dutch electronics company Philips was also active in the video recording business during the time I was working there. Following a (still) predictable and reproducible business strategy, technology trumped marketing and the Philips technology (of course) was viewed superior to both Betamax and VHS, even if the recorders and tapes were considerably more expensive. Philips had a factory in Vienna for manufacturing and was content to dominate the Northern European market (basically The Netherlands and anything within 500 km of its borders). Two (whispered) reasons appeared to drive this strategy: first, a very intentional and successful branding strategy to keep the Philips name very highly regarded primarily in its local market, and second, as an indirect consequence, a business model that seemed to expect to capture the entire R&D investment from the sale of the first unit 🤔.” ⭐ [Become a Quartz member]( 🗯 [Comment on the new Quartz app!]( ✏️ [What did you think of today’s email?](mailto:obsession%2Bfeedback@qz.com?cc=&subject=Thoughts%20about%20the%20morning%20routine&body=) 💡 [What should we obsess over next?](mailto:obsession%2Bideas@qz.com?cc=&subject=Obsess%20over%20this%20next.&body=) 📬 [Forward this email to a friend](mailto:replace_with_friends_email@qz.com?cc=obsession%2Bforward@qz.com&subject=%E2%8F%B0%E2%98%80%EF%B8%8F%E2%98%95%EF%B8%8FThe%20morning%20routine%3A%20A%20history%20of%20the%20day%E2%80%99s%20opening%20act&body=Thought%20you%27d%20enjoy.%20%0ARead%20it%20here%20%E2%80%93%20http%3A%2F%2Fqz.com%2Femail%2Fquartz-obsession%2F1469915) [🎁 Get the Quartz Tabsession Chrome Extension]( ☕️ [Dive into the archive]( Today’s email was written by [Corinne Purtill]( edited by [Jessanne Collins]( and produced by [Luiz Romero](. 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