Write as Soon as Possible Every Morning

Make a beeline to a blank page

Photo by Marcel Ardivan on Unsplash

Recently, my morning routine has started with writing an essay as soon as possible, before doing any other mental work.

This is a shift in thinking for me, because previously I have tried to “ease into” and “ramp up to” morning writing through other easier activities like reading and journaling.

But I found that by the time I finished my preliminary tasks, I generally wouldn’t have enough fresh energy and remaining time to really get into writing. As a result, my morning writing became more of a chore and a box to check than a source of inspiration and a way to prime my day. (To see what I mean by that, see my post Write Your Way Into a Great Day.)

I have also been influenced by Rian Doris’s recommendation to dive straight into challenging and meaningful work as soon as possible upon waking. He calls this a “Wake Up in Flow” routine, because it synchronizes well with our natural “flow cycle.” Watch this video to learn why:

So now my morning routine begins with knocking out quick and mindless starting tasks (making coffee, taking my medicine, etc) as efficiently as possible and making a beeline to writing my next essay.

For the past few days, that practice, along with my “Write One Sentence” gateway habit, has enabled me to get in a writing groove every morning and to have, with this post, a six-day publishing streak.

I’ve also found that writing primes me for reading better than vice versa. After writing, my thinking is more concentrated and orderly, equipping me to get more understanding and ideas out of my subsequent reading. And writing to publish is more powerful in this regard than writing only for myself (journaling), because it forces me to better organize my thinking in order to make it comprehensible to readers.

As the great journalist Henry Hazlitt wrote:

One incidental advantage of the habit of writing out one’s ideas is that it promotes concentration as almost no other practice does. As one who has written daily newspaper editorials or weekly magazine columns for many years, I can testify that nothing forces one to pull one’s thoughts together more than deciding on a topic, sitting before the typewriter, feeding in a clean sheet of paper, and then trying to frame one’s exact theme, title, and opening paragraph.

Francis Bacon summed it up with unsurpassable conciseness: “Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man.”