The first hour of the day, without screens

The first thing I used to do every morning was pick up my phone. Before I was out of bed I'd read Slack, email and a few dozen posts. By the time I sat down at my desk, my head was full of other people's work.

Three months ago I tried a simple rule: no screens in the first hour after waking. The phone charges in another room and the laptop stays closed.

What I do in that hour

Nothing special. I make coffee, water the plants, eat breakfast slowly. Some days I read a few pages, some days I just look out the window. I deliberately don't turn this hour into a self-improvement checklist, because then it becomes one more thing to finish.

The one thing I keep up is a paper notebook. I write three lines: what was worth remembering yesterday, what matters most today, and what I'm worried about. It takes five minutes.

The hard parts

In the first week my hand reached for the phone about ten times each morning. The feeling was clear, like I'd forgotten something. The alarm was the first practical problem. I bought an old-fashioned clock so the phone didn't need to sit by the bed.

The second was the fear of missing out. What if something urgent came in? After three months, the number of things that genuinely couldn't wait an hour is zero.

What changed

I start the workday with a question of my own instead of a request from someone else. The most important task in the notebook is usually the first thing I do when I open the laptop, and on most days it's done before lunch.

I'm also less tired in the afternoon. I'm not sure why. Maybe the mornings are just less rushed.

If you want to try it

Start with 20 minutes instead of an hour. Leave the phone outside the bedroom the night before, because that's the step that decides it. And don't swap the phone for another screen like a TV or tablet. What I needed to drop was the habit of reacting, and the phone was only one way into it.

This post is part of Living, where I write about life outside design work.