Designing a Morning and Night Ritual for optimal life

Why morning and night rituals are essential? Why they aren’t replaceable by mid-day activity?

Morning and Night are essential time because they provide the start and end to the day.

By starting the day of right, we can increase the probability of having a good day. By ending the day right, we can increase the probability of having a good next day.

The morning and the nights can be well planned and be more structured than mid days where plans have to adopt day to day.

Because of this stability provided by a stable structure, they can become essential tools to take care of our needs, reset and work on long-term goals which we miss in daily mid-day planning.

The morning and nights are more personal and handled individually than mid days.

How to plan your morning and night ritual?

Here are the 3 parts we need to plan:

1. Morning should provide a jump start to the day.
2. A good night sleep should be in adequote amount and provide essential rest and relaxation
3. Night ritual: Should prepare us to have a good next day and ease in the process towards relaxation.

Here my take on how to plan:

Morning

1. Wake up at least 1.5 hours before you have to be out or before a computer screen. This will give you an ample time to start day off right and not rush. In case you woke up late or have less time on hand, you can do as many things as time allows. No need to rush.
2. Make bed. Make sure it’s reset so that when you come back it’s perfect. This carries our organization that you did last night. Remember, bed is only for sleeping and fucking.
3. Take care of Hygiene. Drink Water. Poop. Brush. Wash Face. Sit for 20 minutes. You want to sit only once in a day right? Don’t bring your phone. You likely have unprocessed thoughts from the good night sleep you had. And you have a good space to pause and reflect. :)
4. Go out in the sun. Sun is vital for our body. It improves your mood, produces more testosterone, manages circadian rhythm and helps you sleep better at night. Therefore, get as much sunlight as possible. It’s better to the rest of the activities in sun. Expose as much of your skin to the sun as possible.
5. Exercise. It can be little. 5-6 minutes. Or the 7-minute workout. Just get yourself moving.
6. Now you can go have a shower**. hot+cold bath. Relax your body. And get dressed and sharp.
7. Post-exercise your mind is likely active and with bath and being properly dressed, it’s ready to be sharpened.
8. Read and reflect. Read about 10-20 minutes of something that you are reading. This is non-fiction.
9. Meditate. This can be guided. Make yourself calmer.
10. Now you can take 2 minutes of break like you do at the gym and look at the well planned day you set last night.

Sleep

Aim to have 8 hour of bed time. So, it you are going to start your work at 9, you wake up 1.5 hours before at 7:30. And you have your sleep for around 8 hours so 11:30 bed time.

The goal is to have a relaxing sleep to start next day right.

Night

Like morning, start your night ritual at 1.5 hours before bed minimum.

The activities we have at night are all of relaxing nature. It also serves as a place to handle small things that we won’t have to think about in the morning.

If dinner at your home is prepared by someone else, you can adjust activities in this list. Just make sure it’s consistent and stable.

1. Clean up your room. So that it’s organized. You want to have your environment reset.
2. Have dinner with family. This is the place you can put your phone is airplane mode or turn off internet on a minimum. This time is a good time to bond with family and catchup over the day.
3. Take a walk outside alone. You can spend around 20-30 minutes. It’s a great place to rewind and reflect and walking would also help your with digestion post dinner.
4. Plan your 3 MITs Most Important Things for the next day.
5. Layout clothes and pack your bags for tomorrow. This will help you be sharper. Looking and feeling sharp increases your performance. You can also get a shave if you need to.
6. Now that it’s the end of the day, you might wanna clear out all your thoughts. Nights are a great place for writing. Mornings are great for editing.
7. Fill in 5-minute journal. This should serve as a reset to end your day.
8. Dim your lights. Make sure the room is cold.
9. Sleep. You can use deep breathing to help ease into sleeping. While trying to sleep, along with deep breaths you might reflect on your day. Think about next or talk. It’s your space.
10. Embrace of 8 hours of sleep. :)

Remember this, morning, sleep and nights are sacred and they need to be protected, prioritized and planned well. The result is a 20x increase in effectiveness and consistency towards optimal performance. So, this time isn’t wasted, it’s invested with a much higher return on investment than anything that happens mid-day.