Want To Master Your Morning? Try These 4 Routines To Jumpstart Your Workday.

Justin Zack
2 min readJan 14, 2023

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I have been an early riser all my life.

And I come from a long line of Larks.

When you wake up early (and no one else is awake), you look for things to do. I have tinkered with volumes of morning activities, including “trying” to sleep in.

Here’s my current approach to starting a productive work day:

The 5 Spot for a quick start.

Here’s how it works:

  • Set your alarm for 5AM the night before.
  • At 5AM, get out of bed. No snoozing.
  • Chug a cold glass of water.

These simple steps help me knock out grogginess immediately.

5–5–5–30 to get your blood flowing.

All credit to Sahil Bloom for this one.

Here’s how it works:

  • 5 pushups
  • 5 squats
  • 5 lunges
  • 30 second plank

These four exercises get blood flowing to my brain and preps me for the next routine.

750 words to put your mind in gear.

Here’s how it works:

  • Write 750 words as fast as you can.
  • Stream of consciousness.
  • No edits.

Do these 3 things, and you’ll clear the pipes for the next step.

Note: I use 750words.com to help me with this routine. It’s a fantastic resource for friction free writing.

10–10 for 10 to create your best ideas.

Here’s how it works:

  • Avoid logging into any device.
  • Crack open a moleskine notebook.
  • Write 10 ideas — If you need help, use James Altucher’s Idea Machine.
  • Write 10 questions you have about any topic.
  • If you avoid distractions and do this for 10 minutes, you’ll unlock a rich source of creativity.

Easy, right?

This entire routine takes me 45 minutes. It pumps me full of energy for the rest of the day.

That’s it!

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Justin Zack

Project leader. Product thinker. Write about human things. Find me at justinzack.com