Edition #21: The 20-Minute Morning

 Here's What's Up:

• The All-Or-Nothing Trap

• The Three-Bucket System

• The Five-Minute Work Hack Nobody Talks About

• Jack Dorsey’s Minimalist Playbook

• Your Starter Kit

The All-Or-Nothing Trap

Most people treat morning routines like gym memberships. They imagine their ideal scenario, commit to something unrealistic, then abandon ship when life gets messy.

The fitness industry figured this out years ago. They built 7-minute workout apps because they realized something profound: consistency beats intensity when you're building habits.

Your morning routine needs the same reality check. Twenty minutes done every day demolishes an hour-long routine you'll ditch by Thursday.

The Three-Bucket System

Stop overthinking this. Your morning needs exactly three things, in this order:

Wake your body (5 minutes). Jump in place. Do push-ups against the counter. Dance to Taylor Swift. Your brain can't boot up until your circulation gets moving.

Anchor your mind (5 minutes). Write three things: your biggest priority, one personal item, and something stupidly easy to complete. This isn't planning your whole day, it's installing guardrails against chaos.

Start something real (10 minutes). Not email. Not scrolling. Not "organizing your desk." Actual work on your biggest priority. Even 10 minutes of forward momentum beats zero.

The magic isn't in the activities. It's in the sequence. Motion, then direction, then action.

The Five-Minute Work Hack Nobody Talks About

Before you even think about your "real" morning routine, try this micro-intervention:

Scan your calendar. What meetings can you skip? What tasks are just theater? Cross out the noise, circle what moves the needle.

Write one sentence. Your first move on the most important thing. Not a strategy—just the literal next step.

Done. Calendar closed. Brain primed.

This isn't about planning your whole day. It's about preventing that 9 AM panic where you stare at your computer wondering what you're supposed to be doing.

Jack Dorsey's Minimalist Playbook

The former Twitter CEO runs his mornings like a Swiss watch:

• Up at 5 AM (same time, always)

• Ten minutes of meditation (nothing fancy)

• Five-minute gratitude journal (three things)

• Coffee, then straight to work

The insight: Boring is beautiful. He's not optimizing for variety or excitement—he's optimizing for zero friction. Same routine, same time, same results.

Your Starter Kit

Tonight: Set your alarm 20 minutes earlier than usual. Just 20.

Tomorrow: Run the sequence. Five minutes moving, five minutes planning, ten minutes working. No phone, no exceptions.

This week: Repeat the exact same routine. Don't improve it, don't expand it, don't make it "better." Just do it.