Almost one year ago, my life changed. It wasn’t a big, dramatic event that was the catalyst, nor a realization that my life was on the wrong path. To be honest, I didn’t even know that the path I was on was heading in a direction I didn’t want to go.

No, what changed my life was far more simple. I started a morning routine.

It’s true when they say small, micro efforts daily add up to huge results. I hardly changed anything — I was simply spending the first 40 minutes of my day in a different way. …

The Stoic life centred around habits and routines — practices in which they engaged daily, from their waking moments until going to sleep, that provided the structure necessary for a day lived well. These practices can provide a blueprint for us, to help us to lead good and happy lives. This article outlines these practices, and how you can structure your day like a Stoic thousands of years later.

“Assemble your life… action by action. And be satisfied if each one achieves its goal… No one can keep that from happening…Action by action.” — Marcus Aurelius

Morning

Wake up early

“The day has already…

Sleep these days is sometimes hard to come by.

Fortunately, there are steps we can take to improve our quality of sleep, and a great way to do this is to optimize your pre-bed routine. You likely already have some sort of routine that you follow each night before going to bed. Simply adding or modifying a few things will enable you to end your day mindfully, which will have a huge benefit for your sleep quality.

Here are 4 steps to create a mindful evening routine.

Drink Tea

Drinking tea, or hot chocolate, or whatever your choice of beverage is, is…

Do you feel like you read a lot of books, but you can never remember what you’ve read?

A good way to mitigate this is to summarise the key point of a book (or at least the stand-out message for you) in one sentence. If you can do this, you’ve understood the book well. This is also a great way to easily keep track of what you’ve learned without having to remember long book summaries, making it more likely you will be able to consistently implement your learnings.

Here are my one-sentence summaries for the last 20 books I have…

Did you know that the air in your bedroom may have lost its negative charge?

And did you know that this has myriad consequences for your health? As we breathe air, this air actually loses its charge and becomes less energizing. But these negative ions are so important for our health.

Fortunately, there’s a simple solution.

Open your windows

“Did you know that the ions in the air you breathe can become stale and less energizing? The air you breathe carries more than just oxygen into your cells; it also carries other ionic elements that are vital for your health and well-being. As…

Morning routines and practices, while incredibly cliché at this point, are incredibly powerful.

How we start our days is usually how we continue through the day, and how we’ll end it. If we want to be productive, happy, calm, present, grounded, then we need to start the day in this manner. We need to find practices that engage the body and mind and ready us for the day ahead.

While my morning routine consists of numerous practices that are constantly ebbing and flowing, these 5 practices will pretty much guarantee a good day.

Hydrating

It is so important to drink water…

Waking up early is hard.

Even for those people who say it’s easy, I think it’s actually hard for them too. Especially when it’s dark outside, we’re sleep-deprived, and life is crazy and it’s so much nicer to stay huddled under the covers.

Unfortunately, this is not how we achieve great things. Of course, you could do things later on in the day, but I think it’s pretty well established that the most successful people in the world wake up early and get work done.

Fortunately, we can make this easier on ourselves. …

Yes, that's a great practice to include in your morning journaling. It is so beneficial.