Morning Routines, Screens, and Fifteen Minutes

Rethinking my morning and maybe fitting in a few minutes of intentional routine before I turn on a screen.

Happy Sunday everyone. I am not a “dear reader” kind of person. It would sound incredibly silly coming from me even if it is the unspoken subtext.

It was a week. I started in one place, convinced and adamant, a heavyset white-haired lady tilting at windmills. I ended in another place altogether, sitting on the dock of the metaphorical bay, legs dangling, lining up a morning routine. I may have given myself a bit of writerly whiplash as I wrote my way through from one side to the other in thinking about morning, in thinking about my own habits and behaviors, and in, finally, inviting room for change.

Don’t pick up the phone.

Don’t look at a screen.

One or the other of these seems to be on a lot of “lists” that march past these days, lists claiming to have the answers we all need for a better morning, a better day, a better outlook, a better attitude, a better life.

That’s where this week’s post starts (down below), with illustrated components if you just want the highlights.

In and around that:

• I watched the Joan Didion documentary, “The Center Will Not Hold,” which I found riveting.¹

• I found myself with goosebumps and then tears reading back-to-back poems in Andrea Gibson’s You Better Be Lightning.

• I came home from getting my COVID vaccine and burst into tears. I wondered sardonically if sudden-onset weeping was a side effect of this booster.

• I made eggs alongside my grilled cheese, an odd, out-of-the-blue combo, and when I took my first bite, I was overwhelmed with the sense of my grandmother. Something about that bite of egg. I couldn’t explain it. I couldn’t shake it.

• I drove someone to an appointment only to find out it had been canceled. (Not everyone checks their phones.)

• I read a manga, one that brought back the wonderful, long ago, shared reading of Bakuman with my oldest.

• I lost a bunch of followers at Instagram. (I’m trying to convince myself it’s not because of the clowns.)

• I stood in long lines at the pharmacy.

• I watched a woman with an oxygen tank and a little dog she told people was mostly Maltese, and I worried as the dog and leash milled in and around her tubing.

• I smiled at an unexpected phone call.

• I saw an ant in a new location, an ongoing game of whack-a-mole.

• I made a point to tell the security guard at the library that I appreciate that he is there. He called me Miss.

• I made grilled cheese and eggs again, maybe hoping for that same aura of memory.

• I laughed on the inside when someone picked fig jelly, the only thing he wanted to buy, something I often consider (and love).

• I contemplated, again, the display of Halloween Pez dispensers.

• I suggested out loud a ramp for the front stairs. Apparently that would be worse.

• I am watching Gilmore Girls (again) at night as I draw or work in my illustrated journal.

Sink, sank, sunk.

Battleship, of course. And in looking at reference material for a drawing, I saw Connect Four. Games of memory.

A lone parrot. We were driving home from a doctor, and I heard and caught the movement of a single parrot. There is never just one. They move in a small, noisy, green flock. But in that moment, a single parrot.

The post today moves in and out and back and forth…. I came not full-circle but to a new perspective, one which looks a lot like full-circle. I am always grateful for the capacity to change, to rethink, and even to contradict myself.

In the end, I hope you will think about your morning.

Have a good Sunday and thank you for reading.

Amy

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Morning Routine

Don’t pick up the phone.

Don’t look at a screen.

One or the other of these seems to be on a lot of “lists” that march past these days, lists claiming to have the answers we all need for a better morning, a better day, a better outlook, a better attitude, a better life.

According to these lists, we will have a better start to the day, be happier, be more focused, be less overwhelmed, less anxious, less stressed if we change how the day starts.

If you are following these wisdoms, armchair science or otherwise, you might be seeing these lists only by chance in surreptitious, stolen minutes of free time you spend on a screen. Chance or osmosis. Guilty reading. Mindless scrolling.

My Mornings Are Fine

I climbed up on a mental soapbox this week, limbs creaking as I hauled myself in place, at again seeing (while scrolling social media) that to have a meaningful morning, I need to be device- and screen-free.

I am skeptical of people who want me to believe they have one-size-fits-all answers, one-size-fits-all ideologies.

That’s what I told myself.

My mornings are fine. They’ve even gotten better this year because I give myself a longer window than I used to.

My mornings are fine. They involve screens.

There is no yoga or writing of affirmations or meditation or walking around the block in the dark, no chugging of water, with or without lemon.

My mornings are fine.

I went on to list the myriad ways I use “screens” in the morning that are productive. then I thought about what I “need” in the morning. Really simple things. Just five.

The screen, of course, is the portal, the gateway.

This simple list works for me. It is minimal, mindful, thoughtful. The screen is a tool.

But then I saw another angle and realized that maybe I needed to think about it differently. Maybe there is a middle ground. Maybe there is something here to try. I already have systems in place to limit notifications. I have quiet time. But I do grab my phone… first.

My diagrams ignore that. We always shape what we present, what stories we tell ourselves.

The soapbox argument I was making hinged on the fact that once I actually get up, fold up the quilt, change clothes, and make coffee, the next thing I do is rearrange the pillows so I can create a makeshift table for my iPad and keyboard. And then I write. Or, I might draw or sketchnote. I update things in Notion. Some mornings, I move on from there to reading substacks, leaving comments, and so on.

This margin of morning is part of the happiness buffer for my day. This margin is the portal, the time out of time, the time I get to tap into the projects that mean the most to me. The time I spend writing is important. This morning window is an opening, one I hold close and am protective of.

This margin…. requires a screen, sometimes more than one screen. I look things up. I ask questions. I save quotes and photos. I check facts.

So I reacted to the “no screens” when I saw it pirouetting across my Instagram feed, part of a bulleted list, all in white, echoes of the Sugar Plum Fairy in the wings. Give me a break. I am not willing to trade in my morning and lose this special window, this productive time I have just because someone made a list that says “no screens,” and shared it for us to see on our screens.

Who are these list makers to threaten my me-time, my lifeline?

I was starting from the wrong moment though. My productive time isn’t really in question here, or doesn’t have to be. What about the wedge of morning, a sliver, just before that?

I started thinking about things I don’t always make time for, things like gratitudes and affirmations.

Brain Waves

There must have been something worming its way around my head though because, sitting at the library one night, I did an idle search on morning routines and phones. The first bits of information I found were about brain waves.

Apparently…

“When you first wake up in the morning your brain switches from delta waves to theta waves, which occur during a sort of day dreamy state.” When you pick up your phone first thing, you skip the theta and the alpha waves and jump straight to beta.” (Forbes, “Why You Should Stop Checking Your Phone In The Morning”; emphasis added)

This was interesting, these different waves and the leapfrogging that happens when we pick up the phone first, jumping straight from sleep into an unbridled flow of information. I imagine my waves are likely fairly skewed. I think of the tides, of checking before we go to look for sea glass, trying to catch the tide going out. The timetable for my brainwaves is probably a jumble. I use my phone on and off throughout the night. First thing. Last thing. In between thing. That started with medical alarms, but now it is a pattern, a habit.

The phone is definitely the first thing I touch in the morning…I need to know what time it is.

Logically, knowing what time it is isn’t a bad thing. That isn’t the argument. It is the fact that in checking the time, we immediately see notifications. We might expand those notifications and scroll through emails. We check for texts. We might open a social app. Checking the time, in and of itself, isn’t a bad thing. But most of us don’t stop there. We may not be good at “not” looking at all the rest of it.

(The “one Dorito” concept is important here. I approach so many things this way, but I have maybe willfully overlooked the phone.)

[“Hey, Siri… what time is it.”]

Interlude

Earlier this week: Writing this, I am sitting with my legs drawn up on the couch, body swiveled, small keyboard propped on the folded iPad case, holding the triangular wedge of the whole thing in place on top of my pillow. It feels architectural, like there are beams and supports, like I’ve engineered something magical and functional, convenient and essential. This is my version of minimalism. My coffee is on the table in front of me, and I do have to lean forward to pick it up, unfolding, lifting, and then refolding my legs. This is the bit of ballet of morning. Eventually, once it is past the spilling point, I will wedge the cup between me and the pillow.

This week has been full of nothing, a nothing so heavy that I feel weighted, pinned, a concrete shell.

In this exact moment of morning though, my eyes full of tears as I write and do not write my truth, I see there is light coming in through the windows…. There is light on the back side of the Christmas tree. (It’s almost time for that to not seem odd.) Just a few ornaments are in the path, a train, a snowman, an angel.

I held my arm high and snapped a photo from above, trying to visualize this position, the kind of thing I wish I could draw. The mess of the room is what stands out in the photo for me, the harsh reality of the wide angle, the rolls and pounds of this last year. If I just focus on the light, on the paintings, on the windows, minus the mold I discovered earlier this week, mold spotting the whole ledge like the polka dot clown hat I inked last night… if I just focus… pick and choose…  I see things of beauty.

The light on the tree has shifted even in these few seconds, more of the tree illuminated. This early sun tells me it will be warm today. I prefer gray mornings, but I love to watch how light comes through the window. Right now, most of the curtains are dark, but there is a vertical strip, maybe ten inches, that is almost translucent in the light, the sun gently coming through, bringing the lace pattern into focus. The panels appear buttery in this light. The slanting morning light softens their age, transforms their dinginess, makes them seem, for a moment, airy and sheer once again.

I imagine not showing up. But as soon as I put my fingers on keys, everything opens, the torrent surges. This is a voice I know. This process is a valve that keeps the entire system from exploding, or imploding.

Transitions

There is little transition in my mornings. I wake. I check my phone. I fold up the quilt. I get dressed and make coffee. Sometimes I remember to stretch once or twice, reach for the sky, breathe deep. I then sit in this spot for however long I can reasonably prolong moving to my computer for the day. (It is harder and harder to make that move, but I have many many years left and bills I struggle to manage even now.)

Today, I am typing. Yesterday, I spent my entire margin of morning working on a simple drawing of a phone in GoodNotes for the sketchnote I had started. Yes, I could have used Procreate, but then I would be doing a “real” drawing. Sketchnoting in GoodNotes invites me to do quick illustrations that deliberately lack polish. They are limited, but their limitations become the invitation. The limitations give me permission to do loose, wonky, “you get the gist” icons and drawings.

Theta, alpha, beta. I don’t care. drawing the phone was satisfying. It took time. It sidelined me. I didn’t get to write. It was a good use of morning.

Dopamine

After reading about brain waves, I ran straight into dopamine, a word I hear dropped here and there but haven’t ever stopped to really examine.

Picking up our phones increases our addiction to the dopamine rush of online worlds.

That’s my summary. Apparently every time we pick up a screen, dopamine is released in the brain. It feels good for a minute, but it is temporary. The allure of checking for notifications, for likes, for comments, for DMs, for texts…it’s all related to a furious cycle of dopamine.

I am not going to do a science deep dive on any of these things, but all of it got me thinking. We don’t always know what we don’t know, what we’ve been ignoring. I sat down on the soapbox, let my legs hang over the edges, dangling, swinging off the side, toes skimming some imaginary pond below as if I was sitting on a pier or an old bridge, fresh air, birds, the bubble of fish.

Reflection 

I worked on the sketchnote. I was arguing my point, that screens can be integral to morning. And then I saw it staring up at me. The lack of transition…. The faulty syllogism. This doesn’t have to be an either/or moment. I know how powerful my analog morning was in the early months of this year. (I miss it.) Maybe there would be something valuable in building in a softer morning, even for a few minutes.

What was missing in all those lists dancing across the screen was the softer suggestion, the reminder that you don’t have to throw out your morning. You don’t have to “give up” what’s important in your morning just because it involves a screen. But maybe there is benefit in shifting things around.

An Experiment

I decided to put this to the test….. I don’t want to begrudge my morning routine for making me miss out on the window of productive time, so I’ll try to get up a few minutes earlier. I’m going to focus on a 15-minute slot (which I know will be a bit longer, but 15 is the baseline).

I am going to focus on just a few “things” I want to add.

When you look at those lists of all the things a morning routine might involve, it can be overwhelming. It is easy to decide to do so many things that it becomes cumbersome. Good advice is to start with three or four. You choose. Choose the three or four you are most interested in, that speak to you, or that you think you really need. (Your list of “possible” things will be different from mine.)

I chose five.

I waited until I woke up on the first day (yesterday) to decide. I woke and lay there in the dark thinking about which things I should do for this experiment.

I immediately realized how deep the connection goes, how difficult it felt to not pick up the phone.

I didn’t touch the phone. I steepled my hands and thought of that old children’s rhyme with the fingers, the church, the steeple. I thought about which elements I was going to make the core of this intentional morning routine.

Just fifteen minutes, but also the first fifteen minutes, the transition.

When I got up, I saw the sunrise through the window in the kitchen. (This is my favorite time of the year for the light, usually starting in November.) I didn’t snap a photo. I looked and tried to lock into mind some detail to record. In this case, it was the height of the sun, just reaching the top of the trees in the distance, silhouetting them in the foreground. When I sat down with my composition book to write, I used Alexa to turn on a stopwatch (I always set a timer on my phone when I do the morning writing, for some reasons, it’s part of the flow).

I did the five things I’d selected, along with first sips of my coffee.

THEN I checked my phone, and THEN I pulled my screen and keyboard into place.

I lost nothing.

Maybe I will find something.

I feel hopeful this will be a good rekindling and reclaiming.

Your Morning

So what counts in the morning? It is easy to draft a beautiful and idealized list, an analog, unplugged list. Social media is full of beautiful photos telling us this is true, that this is the norm and the way, that simplicity, peace, and the power to manifest greatness, success, and wonder is within reach. Such lists are, I think, a luxury of sorts. They project an “aesthetic” life that can be beautiful to consider but alienating and isolating to so many, myth-like in its contours, its clean lines, its uncluttered spaces, its feeling of expansiveness, hope, and possibility.

But these lists can offer some good starting points to get you thinking about your windows, your habits, and your morning routines.

What makes your morning list? Not a perfect morning or a vacation morning, but a real morning, a quotidian morning, a repeatable morning. If you craft what happens in an hour of morning, what makes your list? What do you currently do in that hour? What do you wish you were doing in that hour?

How about the first fifteen minutes or half hour?

• What do you do first (beyond the basic survival and hygiene things)?

• What do you need?

• What things might you try or add to your routine?

• What habits would you like to build?

“The trick with a supportive practices list is to make one before you need it. Cartographers don’t make maps when they can’t see where they are. Make a list of things that help you deal with the blues before you’re singing them.” Susan Colón

I hope you pick a few and try them, just remember:

• Start small. Choose three or four things.

• Focus on a small amount of time. (It doesn’t have to be your full morning.)

• Try your sequence for seven days and see how it feels. What works?

• Don’t be afraid to make changes.

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Made It?

Thank you for reading along!

On Sundays, I admit, I check my phone, first thing, to see if there has been even one comment, one email notification showing that I reached someone, that I didn’t wander around half-dressed on the page. (I try not to read comments right away. But I do check to see if there are any. So thank you.)

The S words last week were a wonderful blend:

• Sage

• Satiety

• Selecting

• Serendipity

• Sharing

• Silly

• Simple

• Soft

• Spider

• Spirit

• Strange

• Stardust

• Strength

• Stresslessness

• Stretch

• Stultifying

• Succulent

• Sunrise

• Sweet

• Syrupy

To these, I might add: synchronicity, smattering, shimmer, and stravage. The latter is one I marked recently to add to my journal, a word new to me: to wander aimlessly.

Sprinkling, sparkling, and sophrosyne, which I ran across in a book and talked about many months ago.

This week, feel free to share whatever response is sitting at the top of mind, whether that’s a song lyric, a line from a poem, or something from this list:

• Three parts of your morning you cherish or one thing you would like to add to your morning routine

• One way you invite peace into your day

• Three A words.

• The color that comes to mind first when you see this line.

As always, feel free to rearrange, embellish, and add your own flair and whimsy.

Jump in in whatever way feels comfortable. If you enjoy the weekly post or know someone who might, please share.

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Illustrate Your Week — Week 42

The new prompts for Week 42 have been posted.

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Ada Lovelace, Alice Water, and Other Children’s Books

A few children’s books I looked at recently.

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1. An interesting writeup I read afterwards.