#90 - The Morning Routine Myth

Waking up at 4 a.m. is not a personality, and it’s definitely not a guarantee you’ll feel good by lunchtime. We’re sharing a straight-talking hot take on morning routines, because we keep seeing people build elaborate “perfect mornings” that look productive but actually wreck sleep, add stress, and fall apart the minute real life shows up.

We get into what a sustainable morning routine really is: something that reduces friction and sets your day up to run smoother. Daniel talks through a phase where he got up at 5 a.m. for months, walked, read, journalled, and trained, plus why the whole system collapsed once a bit of friction appeared. From there we zoom out to the stuff nobody wants to post about: bedtime, planning, and the boring night-before prep that makes consistency possible. If you don’t know what you’re doing in the morning, you’re relying on motivation and that’s a shaky plan.

We also bring it back to reality for parents and busy households. Sometimes the “routine” is getting downstairs without waking the kids and stealing five minutes with a coffee. We talk anchor habits for health and fitness, why training early can have a powerful knock-on effect for steps, nutrition, and mood, and why you should never trade sleep for a longer checklist. Finally, we run everything through a simple ROI test: does it add value, remove hassle, and make you a better partner, parent, and human, or is it just performative?

If this sparked a rethink, subscribe, share it with a mate who’s stuck chasing the perfect morning, and leave a review so more people can find the show. What’s one habit you’ll keep, and one you’ll drop?

Got questions? simply email or dm us with those questions

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Transcript

Welcome And The Hot Take

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hey guys, you're listening to the Gen Pop Podcast with me, your host, Larry Doyle. Each week, I'm gonna bring in friends, guests, and experts to help enhance your health, fitness, and wellness journeys. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the conversations. You are welcome back to another episode of the Gem Pop Podcast, where this week co-host Daniel and I, we are doing a hot take, and this is about morning routines. I don't know about you, it fucks me off. I see people getting up at four o'clock in the morning, wasting a load of time, and just being brutally inefficient by the time it comes to later on in their day. Daniel, are you up at 4 a.m.? Ice in your face, dipping your balls in cold water.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

What do you think?

The 5 A.M. Routine That Broke

SPEAKER_00 0:46

Um no, uh, at least I won't say it publicly, but uh I did go through a phase for because of work that I was getting up at five o'clock before for years, and that just became my morning routine. And I actually did funnily enough, from like I can actually tell you the exact date, the 15th of December up till sometime in March, I believe it was. I was gay up at five o'clock every single day without fail, and I had like a meticulous morning routine that was like get up, go for a walk for 50 to 60 minutes, come home, boil the kettle, read um one of Oliver Berkman's books that was like three pages per chapter, and that was the goal was to read three pages every single day, then take my coffee upstairs, get another book, read that while taking notes and journal before I done that, and then go to the gym. But I done that religiously for like three months, and it was actually good. I will admit it was good. It was also very hard to sustain it after a period of time because the minute some bit of friction came in place, the whole thing fell apart, and like it hasn't been in any way close to that since

Prep The Night Before

SPEAKER_00 1:48

then. Um and I think the problem is people look at morning routines as this magical thing that it's going to make you know, make or break your day. But a lot of the time morning routine even starts the day before because like if you're not kind of have your clothes already laid out, if you don't have like say your bag packed or headphones charged, if you're not getting to bed at a normal, decent time or whatever, your morning routine's gonna go to shit. Yeah. And you always see this time and time again when people always set their goals to start on a Monday and think, right, tomorrow I'm gonna get up early, I'm going to do, you know, go out for a walk, go to the gym, do everything early. But they don't do anything the night before. They don't go to bed earlier, they don't get their bagpack, they don't, as I said, like get their headphones charged, they don't lay out their clothes. So then in the morning they wake up late, they're already kind of unprepared because the clothes aren't laid out, their headphones aren't charged, they don't know what they're training because they assume they're going to be getting up at five, they'd have a three-hour run of the day that's going to set them up. So realistically, your morning routine should just kind of like make your day easier. If you're starting your day off already stressed because like you've set unsustainable practices or unsustainable routines, like you're you're just setting yourself up for failure. So your morning routine, um, funny enough, I actually when I started gap at five o'clock back in December, I was reading The 5am Club by Robin Sherman. It was completely unrelated. It was completely unrelated, it just happened at the same time. Sure, sure. But he um he had this like 2020-20 thing where it was like, I don't know, is it 20 minutes of movement, 20 minutes of education, 20 minutes of something else? And like I think that actually works for everything that like your morning routine should fit into a very, very, very small window. Like it should just be like almost like the you know, a snowball rolling down a hill, it's picking up momentum, it's just again, momentum. Um, but it should kind of just set you up for the day. It's not gonna be like if you don't get up at a certain time, like as you said, people get up at five o'clock, but they spend two hours on their phone or just fucking wandering on the place just arsing around. So it's like you could actually benefit more from staying in bed for that extra two hours and actually woken up feeling refreshed, ready to go. So um I think that's the biggest misconception with morning routines is like the more you do the better.

Parenting Reality Versus Instagram

SPEAKER_01 4:04

I've got two morning routines that I'll follow through on, and I don't know which one of them I'm going to follow through on until I literally wake, or I've been woken, because that's my two options. I'll either one be woken up with a kick in the head or the back by one of the girls, or after sneaking into our bed in the middle of the night, or I'll wake up, realize that they're still asleep, and I'll just slide out the side of the bed super quiet, like full-blown ninja dad mode, and try to get downstairs to have a five-minute coffee in peace. That's my morning routine. And that's kind of at half five to half six. I'll wake up either with a kick in the head or just naturally, and I'll if I get woken up by one of the kids, I'll bring them down. Usually Kate and Billy stay asleep in the bed for a little bit longer. Me and Ava will go downstairs. First thing, coffee. Don't talk to me just yet for a little bit of Ava till I get some coffee in the system, and then we'll go. And that's literally my morning routine. I don't have any other structure. I can't. Well, we have our house set open, like every house is gonna be different. I will get a quick coffee, I will maybe get the lunches ready for the girls, or I might be ready from the night before, might get some food prepped, but I can't really do anything outside of that because playing with Ava, keeping her entertained, doing whatever. That's kind of the extent of my routine. I tried to do this thing where I was like trying to train earlier in the morning. Uh, it just doesn't work out. Not with the house the way it is at the minute. Uh the girls will come out to the garage, out to the gym, or they'll disrupt it or whatever, and the session kind of goes to shit. And I want them to be out there, wanting to have fun with me if they see me training. But if I'm trying to train and get into more of a routine, I need to wait till they're gone till the child minders or do whatever. So, like from that front, I actually push my morning routine back to mid-morning now, and like that's when my productivity starts once the girls are at the door, essentially. Um, so I was looking at that a little earlier, like the other morning routine is like just get up out of the bed, struggle down the stairs really quick, get the girls going, and that's it for the day. So it's like obviously you're gonna have different people in different times and spaces. We see this all the time, where I guess those with like younger kids in my current phase that have that versus when they've got slightly older kids, the kids might be staying in bed that little bit more, you might be able to sneak out, the kids might be a little bit more self-sufficient, stuff like that, too. Might get up and look after themselves a little bit more when they're

Anchor Habits Without Losing Sleep

SPEAKER_01 6:22

a little bit older. But that's probably something I'm going to explore later on when the girls are a little bit older, getting out training in the morning. Because for me, I think training in the morning or doing something productive that way is really key for a lot of people because it does set off, and it's not really about the training, it's about the effect of doing that thing, the positive thing first has on the rest of the day. It knocks in into their activity, it knocks into their training, it knocks into their nutrition, knocks into their lifestyle choices. It also frees up time later in the evening when they might be more tired or more fucked off, or just something has happened and gone sideways, and now they can't actually get to their training. Like I tried to get people as much as possible to get their training done very first thing in the morning, if their routine and structure allows, get on with it, get it done, rip off the band-aid. Now you'll see that knock-on effect. It's kind of like that key anchor habit, that rising tide that floats our boats. Do something productive for your health, wellness, all that in the morning time, you're going to find everything else is a hell of a lot more efficient and efficient for you then throughout the rest of the day. And that doesn't mean like going to the gym for a lot of people. That could mean like getting into a cold plunge, it could mean having a cold shower, it could mean fucking doing 20 push-ups, could do whatever. But because you've done that thing now that has this knock on this domino effect into the rest of your day. And I think while most fitness routines and like seeing people fucking going around at four o'clock in the morning a minute, like they're still aiming for eight hours sleep. Like, let's look at that as well, too. Like they're still gonna be like going to bed at like eight o'clock at night and getting up at four in the morning, whatever the fuck it might be time was. So it's like it's still like they're gonna be in the bed for just as long as most people. If you're getting up way earlier to be more productive and sacrificing sleep, you're gonna be way more inefficient and unproductive throughout the rest of the day. And I think that's the biggest fuck up that people make with morning routines is like sacrificing your sleep. But when you can look at that and do that anchor habit, have that locked in, everything else is way more efficient and productive for the rest of the day. You're just gonna be mentally that a little bit sharper as well, too. And I know some people are night owls, some people are like daylight, so whatever you find all these different chronotypes and stuff like that as well to find what works for you. But I guarantee, like for 99.9% of people doing something positive first thing in the morning, you're gonna have a massive knock-on effect at that as well, too. Whatever that is for you, just find that routine, find that structure. Like Daniel said, that is actually sustainable as opposed to some fucking hyper elaborate, nonsense riddled. Because, well, it's cool for you to be able to do that, but like that's the friction with the diet or the training for people as well. The second it becomes friction with it, it's gone. So, like, regardless of how productive that routine or like how hyper performative it might be, if it's not sustainable, it's not gonna be efficient and effective, then as well, too. Um, and it's you can do this, I guess, in phases as well. It doesn't have to be this routine that you're locked into forever. You know, if you need that little bit more productive productivity, if you need that little bit more mental clarity, mental focus, mental sharpness, because you've got a lot more demands on throughout your day, do that thing earlier in the day, and you're gonna find everything way, way easier to manage as well, too. Then you can kind of turn down the dial on it a little bit more. So I think that's another problem a lot of people have is they're trying to keep it at like level 12 all the time, and that obviously just leads to more burnout and more mental fatigue, more friction. Because it's like if you're not arsed about doing it, you're not going to do it, regardless of how many times Jocko and Joe Rogan and fucking Goggins tell you to go do hard things, you know. So, again, from that front, it's just gonna be difficult. Um, what

Practical Advice For Busy Clients

SPEAKER_01 9:40

do you find? You see a lot of people coming in uh when it comes to clients, they're looking at this, they want to establish a morning routine. What's the general advice you're giving them?

SPEAKER_00 9:50

I think I was like as I said, kind of start with the the night before and also just kind of make a list of like what actually is it you're looking to actually achieve. And I think I am a fan, the same as you, of people just doing some form of activity in the morning because um, like when we hear back from clients, it's either like I didn't have time to do my workout after work, I was tired after work, didn't make it to the gym, or I couldn't make my steps for the day or whatever, like because I was so busy, it's like you probably will know to a degree like your busy weeks or quieter weeks, you know what time you start work, you know what time you finish your work, you know what time the kids have to be in school, or time to get picked up. So like it is sometimes easier just to get that, as you said, like out of the way early in the morning. And again, that's where we can kind of adapt things. Like, if you know that, right, I'll only have like a half an hour window in the morning to work out. It's like that's grand, we can make something that actually is going to fit that, but I prefer you to just get something done rather than like every single week you just kind of saying that you were stressed because you couldn't get your session in, or you couldn't hit your steps, or you couldn't do your cardio, or whatever it is. Um, I think it is just a good way just to kind of get something done in the morning, get like done endorphins flowing and everything. You just feel like, right, I feel like I'm already more productive for the day, and everything else just feels that bit easier throughout the day. Um, but I always think the same as like we say that like your your sleep routine starts from the day from starts from the minute you wake up. I think your morning routine starts the day before as well, the minute you go to bed. Because like if you're not actually going to bed at a decent time, you're not going to bed knowing what you need to do in the morning, you're gonna wake up already kind of like dazed and confused, thing wandering around the place thinking, like, where are my clothes, where are my shoes, what am I supposed to be doing? I had a plan, but I can't remember what it was because I just kept it in my head. So I'm a big fan of actually writing stuff down or having an app or something, like did you have a to-do list there of like reminding yourself like what it is you need to do in the morning because um I think uh the other thing as well is that because you said that it is gonna have to be personalized to you and it is gonna be changing over time because if you're like a 45-year-old father or mother and you're looking at you know 25-year-olds on Instagram and look at their morning routine and saying, like, well, they're productive, they're yeah, they're getting all this stuff done. It's like yeah, if you try and follow that routine, it's gonna fall apart. You might be able to do it once or twice in a week, but like after that, it's just gonna fall apart, and that's another thing that people struggle with is changing their morning routine over time because um they might change jobs, they might change professions, they might change their goals, they might move hosts and they're living in a different country altogether, whatever it is, and like their routine is gonna be all over the place. So you're gonna have to adapt with that because, like as I said, I would have meticulously had like a fairly meticulous morning routine before of getting up at five o'clock in the morning because of work circumstances, get up at five, and I was literally living off of alarm clocks because I had an alarm clock to wake up, alarm clock, no word of like to brush my teeth and an alarm clock to leave the house because like I used to get up, have a coffee, and then have um do some reading or something, so I'd have like an alarm to remind me of like right go brush your teeth now, then go to the car during the winter. He was to have an alarm to say turn on the car to actually heat up the car and defrost the car.

SPEAKER_01 12:58

You can get engrossed in doing something else, right, and get distracted too. So therefore you kind of have to pull yourself away from that activity, yeah. Makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 13:05

Exactly. But like it this was also in a period of time when like I was still living at home, um, didn't have any sort of real commitments, anything, bar just like work and the gym. So it's like then when you get into a relationship and you have your own place and you have all these other uh things to come along with it, and other responsibilities, like that's just not going to be feasible all the time. It's not gonna be possible because you have to factor in a lot of other variables as well that will throw a bit of a spanner on the works. So you have to allow for a bit more flexibility that you know you won't be able to get up at five o'clock every single day because you will have to- You're pulling someone else's routine into your own, right?

SPEAKER_01 13:44

So you have to be like responsible in line with their routine, much like where I have to roll in with Kate's morning routine as well, too. And we can do like you know, tag team on the kids to back and forth or do

Relationship Friction And Real ROI

SPEAKER_01 13:54

a little bit of a transfer or whatever, and this works when we're wanting to get more stuff done, so for sure. Uh that all needs to be factored in because there is a wider net that those morning routines will cast. And if we can create more friction, more hassle. It's like, oh, look at you, your bathrobe fucking off and leaving me with the kids again to go do your plunge and your sea swim. Fuck you. That doesn't work, you know. So again, like reduce that friction, get everyone on the same.

SPEAKER_00 14:16

But that's the thing, like your your morning routine is like for your morning routine is like to set you up to be right. How can I be the most optimal, productive, whatever you want to call it, like fodder, partner, business owner, whatever. It's like it's not like it doesn't have to be revolved completely around the gym, cold plunges, breath work, meditation, yoga, whatever. It's like, no, it's literally could be like making the girls' lunches. Yeah, it's like how can I improve in all these different areas? Because people just do get caught up and like, right, I'm gonna get up, go for sauna, red light therapy, do all these things. It's like, okay, but like, what's the actual ROI in all these things? Like, are they actually beneficial? Are they actually contributing to your day? Not really. So it's like they probably aren't the things you should be investing most of your time in the morning, too.

SPEAKER_01 15:04

Yeah, and I think like that's like we could ramble on about it, but like I think that's a huge ending point on that, where it's like, what's the actual ROI? What am I getting from this? And if it fucking floats your boat and it raises all your boats, whatever boat analogy you want to put in there with it, like have at it. Deadly, do the thing. But if it doesn't, like actually evaluate it. Does it add value? Does it take value? Does it add friction? Does it remove friction? How does it allow me to do the thing better? And I'm a better person from doing it in the long term. You know, it's gonna obviously have to compound us, not just an immediate thing. I did it once and I didn't feel nothing from it, let's scrap it. But long term is there actually an ROI. I think that's worthwhile for everyone to actually look and take stock with that. For me, I get far more ROI out of having a coffee and getting on with shit, as opposed to procrastinating, which is a lot of the morning routines that people will get into. Um, I was fortunate to coach for a long time one of the leading people in flow state. He gets up and he works straight away. Within 10 minutes of waking, he's working, because that's when he's at his most productive. He's not reading books about doing the thing. It goes back to Chris Williamson's thing. It's like reading a book about the thing is not doing the thing, doing a tweet about the thing is not doing the thing, doing the thing is doing the thing, right? So, again, like it's where you're most productive, where you get most value, most or away from. Do that thing as part of your morning routine. Uh, I think this can be valuable for a lot of people. Hopefully, you're not listening to this as a part of your morning routine and wasting time. You're getting on and getting after shit as well.

Do The Thing And Reach Out

SPEAKER_01 16:32

Too. Uh, as always, feel free to reach out, touch base, leave a DM, drop a comment, ask us about what you want to know. We're always here to help. Daniel, until the next one.

SPEAKER_00 16:42

Touch you guys soon.