In this UNLAWYERLY. moments Ramin discusses the need to consciously create a morning routine to set the tone for your day.
In this UNLAWYERLY. moments Ramin discusses the need to consciously create a morning routine to set the tone for your day.
00:00
Morning routines are extremely important and the vast majority of us have established a morning routine. And when I say this, I say this with kindness, because I've been guilty of it too, are morning routines for the vast majority of us. They're not great, they suck. In fact, when we wake up, I'm sure the first thing that we do.
00:21
Get your phone check either email or get on social media. And that essentially creates the tone for the rest of the day That establishes how the rest of the day is, for the vast majority of us going to be like Now, morning routines are important and we do them subconsciously.
00:46
It's just habits that we've developed over time. Not necessarily anything that we've consciously decided to do it for one reason or another. When you wake up, think of yourself, as you know, you have a hundred percent available at that moment in time. You've recharged, you've hopefully gotten a good night's rest and when you wake up, you're at a hundred percent.
01:11
But as the day progresses that 100% will start to decrease, decrease by things you have to do, whether it's work, home, a combination of the two school friends family, It starts to decrease and things start to take and most of us, we don't even replenish it throughout the day, But with our morning routines, what it should do is it should help us create a an environment where we use that.
01:40
Hopefully, we're at that 100% mark wisely. I remember when I was working in big law, One of the things that I would do first and foremost is, I would have emails coming in especially emails that came in the night before. And when I was sleeping or emails, that would come in the morning and what I would have to do is immediately get on it to see what I needed to answer right away.
02:07
Of course, this was before even having breakfast. Taking a shower, getting ready for work, during pre-COVID. When you would have to actually go into work and what that would do is it would create a sense, a sense of anxiousness right off the bat, at the very morning which emails that I have to get to, especially the fire drill type emails where it was very unique to answer this right now or you should have answered it last night when you're sleeping.
02:33
And so, what I started to realize was that started to set the tone for the rest of the day, the rest of my day would very be of course, jam-packed. But it would also be one where I just felt like I didn't have a moment to breathe. And so, what I decided to do was start to move away from that and I did it a little by little of course, but I started to not pick up my phone.
02:57
First thing in the morning, I also realized that a lot of our phones have these settings for health and well-being, where you can turn your phone to do not disturb mode which for a lot of us, like, remain. What are you talking about? Do not disturb mode? That means I won't get any text message.
03:16
I won't get any message. I won't get any social media notifications. I won't get any emails. It's gonna be catastrophic. And it's not Actually, it's actually a very great feature that I've just recently started using at a certain point, I designate with my bedtime is and then it will turn my phone into do not disturb and it will create a grayscale also for the image.
03:39
So at nighttime, if for whatever reason I'm turning over and I see my phone, it's not going to be bright. It's not gonna wake me up, But the important thing for that is, when you wake up in the morning, you can set when your phone should move off of, do not disturb.
03:53
So you're not tempted to check your email, you're not tempted to check social media and this way, you can have a few minutes to yourself. And what I do recommend, what one thing that I've done myself and I found a very useful, is I try to take the first 10-15 minutes where I just ease into my morning.
04:15
I like easing into my morning, It's a going joke in our house because my kids will wake up and they have of course energy and they're going out a thousand miles per hour and I tell them hey you may be at that level, but I'm not. I like to ease into my mornings.
04:30
So what do I like to do? Well, I have a routine setup in the mornings where when I'm waking up, I'll of course, if it's around the time for fudger Pearl, do my fudge your prayer, but otherwise I will just start to wake the kids up. Gently tell them, hey, it's getting ready for school and then I will go downstairs and start make breakfast or on the weekends, what I try to do is just take a few moments, I create this, this drink that.
04:55
I drink first thing in the morning. It's a turmeric, ginger, lemon and honey with warm water, and I just sit and set that. And just kind of look outside. We have this nice view in our backyard. Where has beautiful sunsets. And what I'll do is just look out, even if it's just for a few minutes.
05:15
And what that does is just tells me, I'm taking time for myself, I'm not getting tempted by electronics. I'm not getting tempted by emails. I'm not getting tempted by social media. I am taking the power to do something for myself. First thing in the morning I'm not gonna let something else or someone else drain that energy first thing and I'm setting the tone that I'm going to be in as much control of my day as possible with my morning routine.
05:46
I'll also of course go to the gym exercises. A big part of that morning routine and before when I was working, my gym would be, very rushed was something that I did, and of course it helped. But now I like to take my time at the gym. It doesn't mean that I'm at the gym for hours, but in the mornings especially if it's weekends.
06:04
First thing I'll do is I'll wake up, get myself ready and just head out go for my drive and and get my are going. And one thing that I've realized as I've moved away from checking emails or social media or just being on my phone, first thing is that it brings a sense of peace.
06:26
A sense of calm for the rest of my day. Even if things are going out of whack or they're they're hectic as life often is and life does happen. It helps to bring a sense of ease. Because first thing in the morning, I didn't drain that 100% to to 80% to 70% to 60% or of the cases.
06:49
One thing that I found most fascinating is the people that we see as being successful successful in the monetary sense of this material world. What they do in the morning is very different than what we would think. The vast majorityism will not get on their devices, The vast majority of them will not respond to emails or think about work.
07:10
What they'll do is they'll take time for themselves, whether it's related to going for a walk in the morning, doing some exercise, getting some tea or some coffee and just sitting and looking out the window, meditating taking time for theirselves, creating a sense of silence. I had this one part and I didn't work with him, but one of his routines, when we were talking about morning routines, he said that he leaves his phone at home and he goes for a walk.
07:43
Now, imagine this here, you have a partner of a big law firm and of course they get so many emails, they have so many things that they answer have to answer to and first thing in the morning, he leaves his phone at home. For a lot of us associates.
07:57
We thought that was career suicide. But here you have somebody who's a partner who said, no, I am not going to do that. I'm going to leave my phone at home and he would go for a walk for 30 minutes for an hour and what he said that that helped him was it helped to just center him for the rest of his day because he knew that there was going to be a lot of things that were going to be coming into his day and with this would do, is it would just allow him to have some time for himself to help, you know, fill up his jar even more so to speak.
08:29
And then he would get to the rest of this. The emails were not going to go away. The calls were still gonna be there, but he just decided he was going to take some time for himself. I think it's important for us to realize that we don't always have to go with the status quo, or what we think the status quo is, we don't always have to be the first ones responding to emails.
08:53
Yes. My theory, especially for my own businesses, you need to be responsive, you need to, you know, make sure that you're taking care of your your clients. But first and foremost, you have to learn to take care of yourself or social media. Look just because you're not able to scroll first thing in the morning, doesn't mean that you're gonna miss out on somebody else's life and it's kind of funny when I say that because you are looking at somebody else's life and not living your own and on my passing judgment because look I'm on social media.
09:24
I scroll, I do a lot of those things but I've realized that it's important to start taking some of that power. Back to start, giving myself the opportunity, to be able to control, how I want to do things and having a morning routine established and one where you consciously pick what those things are going to be, is just going to empower.
09:49
You is going to give you the ability to realize, hey, look, I'm not a slave to these devices or I'm not slave to these routines. That gives me anxiety or stress or are causes that 100% to start being depleted. I have the ability to be able to choose what I am going to do first thing in the morning and it's going to help establish a tone for the rest of the day.