On Wednesday, I put on my plan for Thursday that I would get up early(ish) and run on the treadmill. No one had to be up before 7 a.m., so I was going to set my alarm for 6:20 a.m., a time that allows me to be up and running by 6:30-6:35 or so, giving me a 25-minute workout, more or less. I have done this a few times since our new morning schedule started with the new school year. (I used to have to be up around 6:30 so this isn’t even any earlier than what I was doing all last year!)

However, as I was getting into bed on Wednesday night, I realized that I absolutely did not want to wake up at 6:20 a.m. I did not want to get into my exercise clothes and force myself to run. I wanted to have a more soft start to the day — something I’ve been wanting most days. I don’t really want to be up and running.

So…maybe running early is not the right plan for me right now. The good news is that I work at home and have a pretty flexible schedule. Most days I need a mental break by mid-afternoon. So I’m planning on blocking out an hour (1-2? 1:30-2:30?) at least a few days a week to go for a run when it’s light and when it’s the warmest it will be in winter. Or I can go on the treadmill and since that’s in the same room as my weights, do a strength workout too. That’s what I wound up doing Thursday afternoon. Maybe I’ll be a little smelly after but…hey, working from home. If I have anywhere important to go later I can clean myself up.

I have written a lot about morning routines (and I host a podcast called Before Breakfast!) but I am on record noting that there’s no reason to get up early to do stuff just to do so. The reason morning exercise works for a lot of people is that this is the only time when it fits. They can’t just stop working from 1-2 p.m. and exercise. They need to get home after work and can’t stop somewhere for an hour to exercise. And by late at night very few people want to exercise. But if I can exercise in the middle of the day, I don’t actually need to get up early. So there’s no real reason to force myself.

In other news: Content round-up! This week, over at Before Breakfast, the longer episode was an interview with Lisa Woodruff. She’s the founder of Organize 365, a company that teaches people how to get their life and stuff in order. She is running a business and getting her PhD simultaneously, so she’s not only got organization tips, she’s got a lot of personal time management tips too. Please check that out!

Other Before Breakfast episodes included “Make hay while the sun shines” (it’s often wise to change things slightly to take advantage of a temporary opportunity) and “If you want to run more, sign up for a race.” While I don’t plan to run any more half marathons any time soon, my Thanksgiving 5k is motivating me to do some speed work…

My new Substack newsletter is called “Vanderhacks” and it features an every-weekday-morning tip. This week I suggested ideas so people “Don’t get lost in transition” (are you more like a tiny boat or a big oil tanker when it comes to turning yourself around?) and behind the paywall I suggested “Little ways to level up your career” — ten things you can do today to make your career more resilient. The current cadence is 3 free and 2 paid posts per week. Please check it out and consider subscribing!

Over at the Best of Both Worlds Patreon community, we had a great discussion of all things meal planning during our monthly Zoom meet-up. The video is available to members. This week we’ve also been discussing teen jobs (our own and our kids’) and music lessons (a surprising source of mental load around here…)

And here’s a sonnet, called “Portland 7:45a.m.” — when I was out running (but NOT at 6:20 a.m….)

By day the heat is gentle, here the sun
has tilted, rising lower in the sky.
October feels like summer, just for fun,
comes visit for a bit before goodbye.

I run between the bricks, the city leaves
have yellowed, and the wind blows off the sound.
A hulking ship pulls in, the port receives
its guest, and I can see its bulk around

the bend, where little sails are speckled, bright
just like the clouds. A dog runs on the sand.
This morning, like all mornings, brings new light,
and all the past’s a shadow, where the hand

of time has left it. See, the bar’s old hose
will splash away the night, which — swirling — goes.

Morning routines are fun to write about, but I soon realized that for those of us with kids and jobs, any given morning routine is going to be a snapshot in time, not an immutable law of the universe. Schedules change. If middle school starts at a different time than elementary school, that will likely change your morning once you have a middle schooler, changing again once high school becomes part of the equation. You could change jobs, or your partner could, or you could start working from home or stop working from home, or change which days you work from home, and so forth. Your partner might start traveling for work. You might start traveling for work. You might also move homes! This will change things too.

So I prefer to think of a morning routine as more of a morning “checklist” — the things I aim to do daily, but may not do at the exact same time. In any case, my current morning “checklist” is a variation on last year’s, but it’s how I’m starting my work days. Usually that happens somewhere around 8:30/8:45 a.m. I go into my office. If the morning is chilly I might turn on my gas fireplace (very easy with the remote control). I read a few pages of Shakespeare (usually about one act) as part of my project to read all the works of Shakespeare over the course of the year. I also write at least 100 words in my 2022 writing file.

I did the 100 words thing every day last year too, which built the habit, but I wound up with a lot of garbage. So this year I decided I wanted a bit more structure. Anyone who was on the December 2021 BOBW Patreon meet-up might have heard me thinking aloud about writing about a single day over the course of the year. As I thought about it, I thought that might be an interesting challenge. Since that particular day (December 14th) was a reasonably active day, I decided to loosely base my daily writing on my memories of that day, with a few extra things thrown in. So you could call it “Based on a true story” — it’s a bit more faithful to reality, at least currently, than “Inspired by real events.” There will be 365 short musings/vignettes on the main character’s life over the course of an ordinary if busy Tuesday.

I’ve just gotten to lunch 50-some days in and I haven’t yet come up dry. I’ve had to think sometimes, but that’s the point.

As for the Shakespeare, some days are better than others. I just waded through Titus Andronicus, and I can see why this bloodbath is not performed frequently. On the other hand, Shakespeare’s audiences didn’t have the ability to stream John Wick and the like. I guess you’ve got to get your violence and revenge how you can take them. (Also some historians think Shakespeare didn’t write Titus Andronicus, but I gather that’s what “some historians” think about every Shakespeare play that isn’t that good. I assume like any working creative he occasionally just had to crank something out!)

But even if Titus wasn’t up there with Hamlet or Midsummer Night’s Dream, it’s been good to see those more famous works in the context of all his work. I can see what devices and structures he used all the time. It’s felt like a worthy project and I’m not sick of Shakespeare yet so that’s promising. Morning by morning I read a little more and create a little more. It’s a nice way to start the day.

What’s your morning routine looking like right now?

Photo: My favorite picture from a morning run, even though that is not part of my morning routine right now.