Rewire Your Morning Routine without Your Phone

Let’s talk morning routines! What’s yours like? I’d be willing to bet it involves your smartphone within the first 15 minutes of being awake! At least, that’s true for 80% of Americans! We grab it to check our social media feeds, inbox, text messages, or heck, even just the weather.

But checking our phones first thing in the morning actually sets the rest of the day up for failure. No joke.

The struggle is real.

I get it, using your phone and checking social media is really tempting in the early morning. For business owners and account managers, that burning itch to catch up on any activity that went on overnight might be even more intense. Perhaps there is even some anxiety about how certain posts fared in the evening hours. 

When I first started as a blogger and social media influencer, checking my phone first thing in the morning quickly became a habit. I felt like I needed to know what happened while I slept. I worried I may have missed something important.

The hard truth.

But here’s the hard truth: scrolling on your phone first thing in the morning sends your brain all kinds of messages that it will carry with it for the rest of the day! By checking your feeds first thing, you’re subtly letting your brain know that Twitter, Instagram, or Tiktok are more urgent than prayer, spending time with your family, or taking care of yourself. 

Beyond that subtle message, studies have shown that grabbing that phone early on will also give you more anxiety and less focus during the rest of the day. We’re literally wiring our brain in those first few moments for how it will behave the rest of the day.

A better way.

While it may seem crazy, I highly recommend leaving your phone on “sleep” or quiet mode for the first part of your morning. As intentional social media users we need to set firm boundaries. Those notifications can wait. 

Instead, order your morning around the things that are most important in your life - like God, your family, and your physical and mental well-being. 

This week’s podcast goes into more of the scientifically proven details about what happens to our brain and our day when we start it on the phone. Tune in. 

Not convinced it will really make a difference? 

Don’t worry! I wasn’t convinced either. So I ran my own little experiment of one! A couple days I would check my phone and then note how I felt throughout the day, how much I was able to accomplish, how I felt, and how I interacted with others. I did the same thing after prioritizing a different morning routine. And let me tell you the results spoke for themselves. 

If you’re a subscriber to my newsletter, you got a full breakdown of my morning routine in this week’s email. If not, go ahead and subscribe today.