'4-Hour Workweek' author Tim Ferriss follows a strict morning routine to maximize productivity — and after a week on his schedule, I can see why it works
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- Tim Ferriss follows a strict — and elaborate — morning routine.
- I tried the routine for a single work week and found that it was energizing, though it was somewhat challenging to start the work day after 11 a.m.
- I also learned the importance of taking care of yourself, whether you do it before or after work.
Tim Ferriss' morning routine is long. If you're the kind of person who needs to ease into the day (my hand is raised), his schedule is probably for you.
Ferriss is the bestselling author of "The 4-Hour Workweek," a podcast host, an entrepreneur, and an investor.
I followed Ferriss' routine for a single work week and found that, while pushing back my schedule several hours so I could drink tea and meditate was a challenge, I felt pretty great. Plus, it beats waking up at 5:30 a.m. a la Donald Trump, whose daily routine I'd tried two weeks prior.
Throughout this experiment, I kept a running log of what I loved — and loathed — about the routine. Here's what I learned:
Ferriss' routine
Andrew "Drew" Kelly
Ferriss has written before about how he wakes up and goes to bed later than most people. He confirmed in an email that generally, he wakes up around 9 or 10 a.m.
My colleague Richard Feloni had already reported on Ferriss' morning routine, which I've summarized briefly below:
- He makes his bed.
- He meditates for 20 minutes.
- He drinks strong tea.
- He journals for five to 10 minutes.
- He eats a small breakfast.
- He exercises for 20-90 minutes.
My new routine
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I made some tweaks to the steps above, so my new, Ferriss-inspired morning routine looked like this:
- I woke up naturally, which typically ended up being between 7:30 and 8 a.m.
- I made my bed.
- I meditated for 5-10 minutes.
- I drank strong tea.
- I journaled for 10 minutes.
- I practiced yoga for 20 minutes.
- I ate breakfast.
For the purposes of getting to the office before everyone else had left for the day, I curtailed some of the morning activities, like meditating and exercising. (Also, to be quiet honest, 20 minutes of meditation sounded like torture.)
I also switched the order of eating breakfast and exercising, so as not to down-dog on a full stomach.
Day 1: Wednesday
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In a moment of absentmindedness, I'd set my alarm for 7 a.m. the night before. When I woke up and remembered I was on Ferriss time (nice!), I turned off the alarm and went back to sleep for another hour or so.
After wake-up round two, I promptly made my bed and tidied up the bedroom. The next step — the one I was dreading — was meditation. It had been years since I'd had a regular meditation practice, and even then, I'd found it frustrating and surprisingly exhausting.
Ferriss uses the Headspace app, which offers guided meditations, and I'd used the same app years ago. This time around, I simply set my iPhone timer for five minutes, plopped down on the couch, closed my eyes, and breathed.
Five minutes flew by. Perhaps I was feeling especially calm that morning, but I found it easier than I remembered to concentrate on my breath and to resist the tugging of thoughts and worries.
I prepared some green tea and pulled out a notebook to journal. Here again, I diverged slightly from Ferriss' routine. He uses either the 5-Minute Journal or Morning Pages — I stuck with free-form writing, which proved surprisingly cathartic.
At this point, I looked up and realized it was almost 9 a.m. I frantically messaged my editor letting her know I'd be in late, around 10:30 a.m. — an estimate that turned out to be off by almost an hour because I'd forgotten to take into account the time it took to shower and dress.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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SEE ALSO: Tim Ferriss follows the same routine every morning to maximize his productivity