Julien Smith
Julien Smith is the co-founder and CEO of Practice, a business management platform for coaches, the author of The Flinch and Trust Agents, and a long-time blogger. He currently lives in Montréal, Canada.
What is your morning routine?
These days my routine starts at 8:00am. I begin almost every day with some basic data checking about my business and 1000 words of freehand writing, which I have been doing as long as I can possibly remember. I got it from Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, and have been sticking with it since my early 20s.
Depending on whether I’m deliberately dieting or not, I’m likely more often than not to be fasting until noon or longer. During this time I drink 3 cups of black coffee which I make with a Chemex from 8:00am til noon. It keeps me focused on work things for the most part, and the calm routine of making coffee by hand is something that follows me wherever I happen to be.
How long have you stuck with this routine so far?
My routine has been consistent, especially the first part, for an incredibly long time. I feel like it’s a part of my personality. It gets me into a certain zone which allows me to feel calm and focused about what matters during the day—I miss it when I stop. It’s an excellent way to get your day started.
How has your morning routine changed over recent years?
While running a business, one of the biggest things I noted is that I would completely let my phone take over wherever I was, either for work related things or just zoning out through social media. So I made a deliberate effort to keep it at my desk overnight, which skews the shut eye time earlier and earlier, and also gets me reading more, which is easy to stop when you are busy.
What time do you go to sleep?
I naturally go to bed at around 10:00pm. If I’m in bed without a phone, I go to sleep very easily while reading. I may wake up in the middle of the night, at which point I’m reading on Kindle again to keep my mind away from work stresses until I naturally fall asleep again.
Do you do anything before going to bed to make your morning easier?
No phone is the most effective sleep mechanism I could ever come up with.
Do you use an alarm to wake you up in the morning, and if so do you ever hit the snooze button?
I do not ever use an alarm on most days except when on the West Coast. It shifts all my regular Zoom meetings 3h earlier, which forces me to wake up with an alarm. But I way prefer not doing it, and allowing my body to naturally choose the amount of sleep I need.
How soon after waking up do you have breakfast, and what do you typically have?
Extremely strict routine on most days as it gets my day started well: no food until noon or later, three pour overs from wakeup time until the first meal, at which point I’m eating two eggs with egg whites and Greek yogurt, which is about 50g protein in the first meal.
Do you have a morning workout routine?
I’m injured right now, but I like to set my workout for around 2:00pm, where there is a lull in my energy.
Do you have a morning meditation routine?
I used to for a long time, and have a big history with meditation—having started when I was 17 until recently. I discovered it was not doing what I wanted it to do for me, at which point I spoke to a Zen priest who was my kind of mentor for these things (I’ve had the good fortune to have a few of these over the years). He told me it was okay for me not to do it, which made me feel like it was okay to stop. I haven’t meditated since.
Do you answer email first thing in the morning or leave it until later in the day?
I do not focus on email in the morning—I don’t feel it leads to productive behaviour. It’s rare that something highly valuable is going to be in your inbox.
Do you use any apps or products to enhance your sleep or morning routine?
No. I am focused on the ritual feeling natural and calming, and I don’t need apps to do this.
How soon do you check your phone in the morning?
This morning, I checked it around 9:00am. I would say that’s about average. My problem behaviours around my phone happen in the evening, not morning, where my natural interest is in writing and checking business stats.
What are your most important tasks in the morning?
As a startup CEO, I know that the business I run should be able to run without me, but that I should be able to increase its leverage with the work that I do. Some days I do this with a very short list, always titled: “How to have a good day,” in which I write a most of 5 items. On days when this happens, I find I am more focused and have better results.
What and when is your first drink in the morning?
Black coffee, almost religiously, for over a decade. I spent a fair amount of money on coffee beans.
How does your partner fit into your morning routine?
My partner has their own need for their own successful routine, so we have a tendency to overlap only slightly in the morning. That said, they have done morning pages recently and found it has worked for them as well (though they prefer long hand, and I prefer doing it on a screen).
Do you also follow this routine on weekends, or do you change some steps?
I do not sleep in the weekends or really ever (because I never use an alarm regardless of the day), unless I had a night where I was up unusually late or stressed. So my ritual is almost identical on all days.
On days you’re not settled in your home, are you able to adapt your routine to fit in with a different environment?
I will say it is difficult, but I’ve found that I can do almost the same thing in hotels as I can do here at home. Often I’ll bring an Aeropress with me to make the coffee with their hot water (I carry beans with me), and I sit in their restaurant with a decent view if I can find it. That said, it obviously breaks up some of the routine to be somewhere else.
What do you do if you fail to follow your morning routine, and how does this influence the rest of your day?
I find that this almost never happens, practically speaking. That said, a screwup in morning routine has a particular effect on my state of mind for a big portion of the day, skewing it towards more stressed if I begin my day in a stressful fashion—it’s hard for me to shake it off.
Julien updated his morning routine with us on Feb 8, 2023. View what has changed since Aug 22, 2018.
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