👋 Hey Reader!

Here’s what I’ve got for you in today’s issue of WFH Dads:

Morning routine tips every WFH dad needs
- Get up early
- Hold off on the coffee
- Read / journal / pray
- Write down your top 3 tasks
- Take a break
What I’m trying out - the AI tool NotebookLM

Morning Routine Tips Every WFH Dad Needs

I used to be a night-owl and took any opportunity to sleep in. In my 20s, I shifted to going to bed earlier and waking up sooner, mainly from my wife just asking if I could go to bed earlier with her.

Now, my mornings have become the best part of my day, and by getting a head start early, I free up more time later to be fully present with my family.

Here is what I’ve found to be helpful when it comes to starting the day on the right foot.

1. Get up early

It’s important to have quiet, uninterrupted time to yourself.

Your day is already filled being REACTIVE to others, the solitude of the early morning is the perfect space to be with yourself.

This allows you to set the tone for the day and mentally prepare before the demands of work and family kick in.

This of course has it’s challenges - your kids may be early risers themselves so that time can easily be cut short. Or you may struggle getting to bed early making it difficult to wake up early.

Here is what’s helped me:

I’m typically in bed by 9:30pm and up by 5:00am. On a good day, I’ll go screen free in the 30 min leading to bed time and just read, but sometimes will play my Nintendo Switch before bed or watch YouTube / TV.

I set my phone across the room so I have to get up out of bed to turn the alarm off. I try to avoid snoozing, but when I do, I limit it to just once.

Once I’m up, I head to the kitchen, but not to make coffee…

2. Hold off on the coffee

It’s tempting to brew that first cup of coffee first thing when you wake up (especially if you’re up before the sun).

But start with water first.

Coffee slows down your body’s production of cortisol, a hormone that helps you wake up. Cortisol peaks 30-45 minutes after you get up, making you feel alert.

By waiting 60-90 minutes for coffee, you give your body time to wake up on its own first, THEN hit it with caffeine when the cortisol is wearing off.

Drinking water first has a ton of benefits.

But maybe you’re like me and kind of hate drinking water.

LMNT electrolyte packs have completely changed that for me (raspberry is my favorite).

Makes my water taste like Gatorade without any of the sugar, so I end up drinking a full 64oz of it every day. And I get electrolytes which are good for me because science.

Once I’ve got my LMNT water, I head to my office, but not to start work right away…

3. Read / journal / pray

Before you start crushing your to-do list, take 10-15 minutes to set your intention for the day by reading, journaling, or praying.

Small moments that we have every day where we reflect on the kind of men, husbands, and fathers we want to be compound over the weeks and years and decades.

There’s a quote that embodies this idea (that I unfortunately couldn’t find who originally said it):

You’ll never become the person you’re not actively working to be.

In other words, it takes work to be the man you who you want to be.

These morning times of reflection are a big part of that work.

For me, sometimes I’ll read a few chapters of the Bible or another faith book (currently reading The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis).

Other times I’ll journal about the previous day.

And then I’ll pray.

These moments are simple but formative.

If you’re not religious The Daily Dad offers a year’s worth of short reflections on fatherhood, with one entry per day.

And if you’ve never really journaled, here’s a good one with simple prompts everyday.

Make time for this. Your future self will thank you for it.

Once I’ve finished praying, there’s one more thing to do before jumping into work…

4. Write down your top 3 tasks

Before you start your work day, decide what the top 3 things are that you want to get done that day - your most important tasks (MITs).

When you don’t explicitly do this, it’s so much easier for your day to be completely reactive to the needs of others, leaving very little time for you to move your projects forward.

While I use Notion as my main weekly task manager, I also like to physically write down my top 3 tasks on a note card for a few reasons:

QUICKER RECALL - whenever I finish a task, it’s easier to glance down at the note card and see which of my MITs are still incomplete
LESS DISTRACTIONS - there’s less opportunity to get distracted by jumping into Notion every time I want to see what’s next on the to-do list
DOCUMENTING WHAT'S DONE - I can feel much more accomplished at the end of the day that while I may not have completed EVERYTHING on my to-do list, I did get at least a few of my MITs done, and this note card is physical evidence of that.

Once I’ve got my MITs established, I start working.

But I can’t just power through work for hours on end…

5. Take a break

Your morning routine and work time shouldn’t (and probably can’t) go on for several hours.

Stepping away from your work after 60-90 minutes first thing in the morning gives you a physical and mental reset.

Little children are great forcing functions to taking this break.

For me, my morning work time goes until 7:30am.

My wife watches the kids if they get up before that and then she leaves for work at 7:30am.

No matter what I’m doing, my work time is done at 7:30am until I drop the kids off at school at 9:00am.

So at 7:30am, I make some coffee and enjoy the morning with the kids.

I come back to my work at 9:00am with a renewed energy.

So take those breaks and enjoy your mornings with your family.

Final Thoughts

You won’t get all these things done every morning.

That’s not the point.

The goal is to begin to structure your mornings more intentionally.

You, your kids, your partner, and your colleagues will all benefit from it.

And when your toddler comes downstairs 2 minutes into your perfect morning routine…well just read this X thread by Matt Ragland that perfectly captures the attitude we should take to these ‘disruptions’:

Matt Ragland

@mattragland

Not gonna lie.

I used to get really bummed out when my 4 year old woke up at 6AM after I had done the "hard work" of waking up at 5AM.

"This is my time! I need to work/exercise/meditate/read!"

I was fighting reality and no one was winning.

So I tried this instead.

7:0 AM • Jun 25, 2023

185

Retweets

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Read 108 replies

tl;dr of the thread if you don’t have X:

Matt used to get frustrated when his 4-year-old disrupted his morning routine, but he reframed it as special father-son time. Now, they spend time working out together in the mornings. His takeaway: Embrace these moments—they won’t last forever.

What I'm trying out—a new AI tool

The AI tool NotebookLM

Perhaps you’ve seen people talking about this on social media but it’s an AI tool where you give it some sources (websites, YouTube links, PDFs, or just paste in some text) and it can generate a short podcast conversation about the topic.

It’s primarily a study tool and the podcast is meant to be a different way to digest the information.

The podcast is the most natural sounding AI voices & conversations I’ve heard.

So I tried it out with this newsletter. I pasted the morning routine tips above in and it first gave me a 10-minute deeper dive. Then I generated another version that was only 5-min and didn’t hit on as much.

Here’s the 5-minute version:

Try it out with a large doc or article you’ve been meaning to read.

My favorite line it generated:

Host 1: What’s the science behind the no coffee?

Host 2: That’s what I was hoping we could dig into, like is this legit or just some sleep-deprived dad logic?

Thanks again for being a part of this community!

Also, I know these newsletters are a bit long but I try to make them easy for you to find sections relevant to you. Would love any feedback on that though if you’ve got an opinion on it. Just reply to this email and let me know.