Lately I’ve become increasingly obsessed with a cool little website called MyMorningRoutine.com. Given the cryptic name, you likely have no idea what it’s about. Luckily, I’m here to inform.

Newsflash: It’s all about different people’s morning routines!

It comes out at least once a week and manages to completely enthrall me each and every time. The folks are often entrepreneurs and work-for-yourself types, so the routines are very interesting because they aren’t usually “Get up and go to the office.” Instead, they have mountains of room for flexibility, and all such they all vary pretty dramatically. They also are folks that often have to work hard to find that critical focused time to complete their projects, so it’s interesting to see how they organize their days to make that happen, especially when working from home.

Here are just some of the things the various people featured are doing during their morning routines that I’ve found particularly noteworthy of late:

• Reading non-fiction by candlelight for 1-2 hours (!) each morning.
• Waking up multiple times a night for pet-related needs.
• Meditating for 30-45 minutes, and saying it’s the most important thing done all day.
• Not eating breakfast but rather drinking some good ole Bulletproof coffee brew up until lunch.
• Remembering and writing down your dreams.
• Exercising within 15 minutes of waking.

All in all, most of the folks are pretty interested in habits and spend time regularly trying to hack their habits, so it’s particularly fun for me to read, since I like that stuff too. (i.e. as you might imagine given the name of the website, there aren’t that many that answer the question, “What’s your morning routine?” with: “I have no clue. I do different things all the time and don’t even remember them.”)

Importantly, another key finding is that most of the folks report how hard it is to keep routines when on the road. Agreed! Although I have a pretty solid routine at home, when running around the world things change up dramatically, and I can’t count on much of my routine to work in far-flung hotel rooms.

All in all, the website is a great encouragement to remember that your morning routine is one of the most critical things you do to set your day up for success, and that figuring out what works for you and what doesn’t in your morning time should be a top priority if you’re interested in hacking your work day.

My morning routine, which I’ll share more about in-depth next week, is centered around this 7-step process I’ve talked about before called The Present Principle. (Feel free to read the post, or to download the free ebook if you haven’t yet done so.) It’s my morning quiet time and it takes me about 20-30 minutes each day to complete most steps. I find a quiet time is essential, and I invariably end up writing in my journal afterwards something along the same lines as, “Best part of my day. As always.”

It’s true. Whether or not you have a morning quiet time, reading time, or meditation time, I’ve got one burning question:

What’s Your Morning Routine?