My Un-Instagrammable Morning Routine (That Actually Keeps Me Sane)

Can we retire the sunrise yoga-on-a-cliff morning routine content? Because I need you to know that most mornings, I wake up with pillow creases on my face, a deadline breathing down my neck, and a coffee maker I genuinely could not survive without.

When I first started creating content full-time, I tried the whole thing. The journaling, the lemon water, the 90-minute routine that influencers swear changed their lives. It lasted eleven days before a 6am call time for a shoot in downtown LA destroyed it completely. What I landed on instead is messier, way more realistic, and honestly — it works better. Here are the five habits that stuck.

1. I Don't Touch My Phone for the First Twenty Minutes

I know, I know. Groundbreaking. But here's why it actually matters for someone like me: my phone is my job. The second I open Instagram, I'm comparing, responding, and mentally drafting content before I've even brushed my teeth. So I bought a $12 analog alarm clock and my phone charges across the room.

Those twenty minutes aren't meditation. Sometimes I just lie there. Sometimes I make coffee first. The point is that my first thoughts of the day belong to me, not my notifications.

2. I Make the Bed — But That's the Only Tidying

This one came from my mom and I resisted it for years. Look, I'm not saying a made bed fixes your life. But when I'm shooting content at home, a made bed means one less thing screaming for my attention, and it's a two-minute win before 9am. That's it. That's the habit. I'm not folding laundry at dawn, I promise you.

3. I Eat Actual Breakfast While Sitting Down

This was the hardest one for me to build, and it's the least aesthetic thing on this list. For years I ran on iced coffee and whatever snack I could eat during a makeup touch-up. Then I'd crash at 2pm and wonder why.

Now, most mornings, I make eggs or throw together avocado toast and sit at my kitchen table — no phone, no laptop — for fifteen minutes. On shoot days when that's impossible, I grab a protein bar and eat it in the car, but I still sit and eat it. The sitting is the point. It tells my brain the day has a rhythm instead of a fire drill.

4. I Write Down Three Things — Not a Whole Journal

I tried morning journaling so many times. Beautiful leather notebook, prompted journals, the works. Never stuck. What finally did stick is a sticky note and a pen where I jot three things: one thing I need to do today, one thing I'm looking forward to, and one thing I'm grateful for.

Total time: ninety seconds. But on days when a deadline has me spiraling, that sticky note pulls me back to reality. Also, the "looking forward to" line has quietly trained me to put something small and good in every day, even if it's just walking to get an iced latte.

5. I Pick My Outfit the Night Before — Even on Days I'm Not Shooting

As someone whose job involves a lot of "what am I wearing," this one sounds obvious, but I didn't actually do it until last year. On shoot days, it's non-negotiable — you cannot be steaming a blazer at 6:40am and still make call time. But I started doing it on regular workdays too, and the mental load it removes is wild.

It doesn't have to be planned to the accessory. Sometimes it's just "jeans and the cream sweater" hanging on my closet door. Deciding at night means my morning brain — which cannot be trusted — never has to vote.

The Real Secret: Lower the Bar, Then Keep It There

Here's the thing nobody tells you about routines: the version you'll actually do beats the version that looks good online. Some mornings I nail all five. Some mornings I make the bed and call it a win. The difference between now and the eleven-day journaling disaster is that I stopped expecting perfection.

If you want to start tomorrow, pick ONE of these. Just one. Do it for a week before adding another. Your morning doesn't need to be a production — it just needs to be yours.