The power of a morning routine

I love creating them. Tweaking them. Journaling on what’s happening in my life when I fall out of them. Tweaking them again and tracking how long I stick with it. However, like many of you, most of my routines have fallen by the wayside this year. But there are some I’ve stuck with, even in the most chaotic of times.

My morning routine has always involved meditation, journaling, and some movement. They keep me centered. I carry many roles—entrepreneur, investor, mother, author, and Taco Bell’s biggest unofficial ambassador—and this routine helps me start the day on the right note. And while I’ve been tough on myself for not eating as well as I should or exercising more or sleeping enough, I take comfort that these routines are the foundation to build on.

Vice President Kamala Harris has been a longtime hero and mentor-from-afar of mine. How she spoke, negotiated, and advanced her career are things I’ve studied from her and adopted for myself in various ways over the course of my career. While I was writing We’re Speaking: The Life Lessons of Kamala Harris, I was not surprised to learn that she is also loyal to her morning routine.

Below is an excerpt from my book, available October 19 (Little, Brown Spark), which dives more into Vice President Harris’ routine and how you can make your own.

Molly Morris Photography

Taking care of yourself

Kamala practices nonnegotiable self-care daily, starting with a morning workout no matter what. “It’s about your mind. I work out every morning. Only half an hour. I get on the treadmill. That’s it. Every morning, I don’t care what time. It gets your blood flowing. It gets your adrenaline flowing.” True to form, she had just returned from a walk with her husband when she got the news that the election had been called for Joe Biden and her. “We did it, Joe. We did it. You’re going to be president,” she gleefully said into the phone, clad in leggings and a pullover. Talk about an endorphin rush.

Eating well is Harris’s other nonnegotiable. Her day begins with raisin bran in almond milk and hot tea with lemon and honey. Her meals are filled with vegetables, whether it’s a salad made with leftover roast chicken from the previous night’s dinner or adding extra celery, onion, and herbs in a quick tuna salad sandwich that had been a staple during COVID-19 quarantine. Her meals are often made with the herbs from her garden, and she maximizes every meal she can. The carcass from the roast chicken will be used to make broth for a batch of soup. When Harris is on the road, she seeks out local restaurants for healthier options, and also to find community and connect with others.

No day is the same for Harris, but there is a comfort in starting every day the same way through her morning routine. The simpler something is, the easier it is to stick with it. But how do you figure out what to prioritize, and how to fit it in? There is no perfect routine or self-care ritual that fulfills all of us, but there are guidelines to help you find yours. Investor and entrepreneur Randi Zuckerberg’s Pick Three framework challenges you to choose just three things each day—such as work, family, friends, sleep, or fitness—and do them to the best of your ability. Pick Three allows you to adjust your focus based on each day. If you’re under the weather but have a tight deadline, you’ll pick sleep, work, and family. Got a sick kid? Family is your priority, but you may be able to fit in sleep and fitness while your little one rests. Pick Three is a helpful starting point, especially when you’re in the discovery phase of your self-care routine. The beauty of Pick Three is that you don’t have to pick nor do the same things every day. Each day brings its own priorities and possibilities to try new things. Keep a running list on your phone of all the things that you’d like to eventually try in Work, Play, Family, and Fitness, but also have a list of tried-and-true things that you can fall back on when you’re too tired or overwhelmed to decide what workout to do or what to work on first.

In this chapter of her life, it appears that Kamala’s three things are fitness, work, and family (and they will change in the future). She treats her morning workouts with the same seriousness she brings to her job, and the same care she brings to her marriage and relationships with her family. Work and family are two permanent picks on my list, and I alternate sleep and fitness depending on how I’m feeling. Since work and family require most of my energy and decision-making power, I keep things very simple on the sleep and exercise fronts. On the days I prioritize sleep, I put my phone on airplane mode at nine p.m., take a warm bath, and read a “security blanket” book (the old favorites you keep coming back to when you want something familiar). I have certain pajamas for early bedtime nights to make them a little more special, and I listen to soothing music as I finish my last chapter and go to sleep.

If I’m committing to fitness one day, I set out my workout clothes the night before and will reach for a coordinated set that makes me want to break out a sweat. There are three workouts I truly love — indoor cycling, yoga, and dance — so I’ll pick a video from each category and have them queued up on my tablet. Come morning, when I’ve made my bed and gotten changed into my workout clothes, I’ll decide which type of workout I’m feeling like and jump straight into it. These little hacks, along with having set breakfasts and lunches, help me reduce decision fatigue.

“Decision fatigue” is more than a buzzy term you find in a business magazine. “It’s a state of low will- power that results from having invested effort into making choices,” said Roy Baumeister, a psychology professor at Florida State University who coined the term in 2010. “It leads to putting less effort into making further choices, so either choices are avoided or they are made in a very superficial way.” Every little decision you make — from what you choose to wear to what you eat for breakfast to what show you decide to watch at night — chips away at your willpower. The more energy you put into these seemingly small decisions, the less willpower you’ll have when you’re faced with more pressing decisions. Kamala Harris minimizes her decisions in her mornings. Her morning routine is getting in thirty minutes of cardio, eating the same breakfast, and dressing in a suit or simple separates. Maintaining this routine every day lets her brain default to heuristics (or mental shortcuts) and conserve her energy and willpower for more pressing decisions.

Think about the decisions you make every day. Are there any where you would be fine with the same one or two options? On days when my kids are still sleeping, I start every single day with a ten-minute guided meditation that my smart speaker plays while I’m still in bed, and then a ten-minute yoga flow (which I select every Sunday, and do every day that week). I added Kamala’s go-to breakfast to my rotation (store-brand raisin bran with almond milk), or a green smoothie (spinach, banana, protein powder, almond milk, and peanut butter), or sourdough toasted with cream cheese and mango chutney. I dress from the power piece section of my closet every morning (more about that in Chapter 6). I opt for salad for lunch most days, and pick one from my three favorites. I realize that these make me sound like the most boring person alive, but having default decisions allows me to expend my mental energy on negotiating with vendors, or writing thousands of words a day, or helping calm down one of my kids. By conserving my willpower and energy on the many tiny decisions I have to make, I have more for the big things that require my full self.

Published from We’re Speaking: The Life Lessons of Kamala Harris: How to Use Your Voice, Be Assertive, and Own Your Story by Hitha Palepu. Copyright © 2021 by Hitha Palepu. Used by permission of Little, Brown Spark.