While 2024 was a year of great things in ministry1 and my personal health2, it was also a year of a lot of stress and change in all areas of my life.
Because of this — and, naturally, my deep sinful nature — many of my good morning habits fell to the way side. Though I had banished social media from my phone, set it to B&W, disabled recommended videos & shorts on YouTube, and quite a few other things, by the end of 2024 my mornings were rubish.
Despite having an alarm for 5:15a, most mornings I’d sleep in until 6:30a to 7a. Then, I’d wander to my office and dive immediately into RSS feeds, e-mail, calendar, and YouTube. By the time work started, I was feeling drained and distracted. Not a great way to start that day.
Worse still, between sleeping in and getting distracted by the digital world, I’d often lose track of what little time I had before work and I wouldn’t get Morning Prayer done before my first meetings. I’d promise myself I’d pray the Office during lunch but, of course, that rarely happened.
To get back into good habits and start a few more, I’ve kicked off 2025 doing what I call “Analogue Mornings.”
More or less, this is my new morning schedule:
- 5:30a: The alarm goes off. I leave my phone in the bed room, head to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee, and then head straight to my reading chair. I spend some time staring out the window, sipping coffee, and getting my engines going.
- 6a: Morning Prayer. 1662IE physical prayer book. Doing my own reading plan (reading through Samuel now) using a physical Bible.
- 6:30a: Prayer done, I stare out the window some more, get a second cup of coffee, and then read some non-fiction. (Again, from a physical book. No eReader.)
- 7:15a: Done with reading, I make time to write in my journal. I don’t follow a specific technique. I do stream of consciousness and just write about what comes to mind.
- 7:30a: The lights in my library automatically brighten so I know it’s time wrap things up and leave. Breakfast, shower, hang with family, etc.
- 8a: Back at my desk only now do I log into a computer, check e-mail & socials, review my calendar, and check on RSS feeds.
- 8:30a: I log into work and start my day.
A few weeks into this, I’ve actually been pretty surprised by the results.
I really shouldn’t have been. As mentioned in The Anxious Generation and a few other sources, just the presence of a phone can be distracting. I didn’t realize how much the presence of the phone in my library was a problem, until I went without it.
Without the phone calling to me, Morning Prayer is more focused. I’m actually able to read large portions of scripture and non-fiction without tiring and without losing focus.
Between the focused prayer, reading, and journalling, I find that when I leave my chair at 7:30a I feel energized and light.
Dedicating 30 minutes to getting settled and setup before work, has made my work days start better, too. I’m not rolling directly into a meeting, but start the day having reviewed what’s up and having a plan of attack.
So, if your mornings are a little rough like mine were: set an early alarm, grab some paper books, a nice pen, and a journal, leave the phone on the charger, and give analogue mornings a try.
A new parish, deep ministry that helped man get off the streets, and a lot of painting. ↩︎
Taking a lot of new supplements, dropping my Diet Coke habit (again), and getting ~10k steps in on my desk treadmill most week days. ↩︎