How to Fall in Love With Your Mornings: The Life Extract Morning Routine

There is a version of the morning that belongs entirely to you.

Before the emails, the commute, the plans, the people who need something from you. Before you've checked what everyone else is wearing, eating, buying, doing or thinking. The morning is one of the rare parts of the day where you get to decide what enters your world first. And we think that makes it rather precious.

At The Life Extract, we're interested in the art of creating a life you genuinely enjoy being inside of. A life filled with good food and beautiful clothes, curiosity, movement, conversation, places worth seeing, things worth learning and enough space to actually enjoy them. The morning is simply where we begin, and a good morning routine will set your day up with this positive attitude.

Wake Up to Your Own Life First

Before seeing what everyone else has been doing while you were asleep, spend a little time in your own world.

Open the curtains. Drink some water. Make the bed. Walk into the kitchen.

You don't have to meditate for twenty minutes or write three pages in a journal unless you genuinely enjoy doing those things.

The idea is much simpler: don't let your phone decide how you feel before you've even gotten out of bed. 

Movement Before Anything

Take a walk while the streets are still quiet. Stretch on the living room floor. Go to Pilates. Run. Lift weights. Walk to get your coffee instead of driving. Choose something that makes you feel more awake when you're finished than when you started.

Movement will not only boost your mood, but it will let your body work before your mind does.

Make the House Feel Awake

Open a window. Put music on. Clear whatever was left on the kitchen counter from the night before. Let the coffee brew while you unload the dishwasher. Water the flowers that are beginning to droop.

There is something incredibly satisfying about watching your home wake up with you.

And perhaps this is why we love mornings so much. Yesterday is over, the day hasn't quite begun, and everything wants a reset.

Eat Something You Actually Look Forward To

We are firmly against sad breakfasts. Your first meal doesn't have to be elaborate, but it should be something you genuinely want to eat and one that makes your body feel good.

Maybe it's eggs and sourdough. Greek yogurt piled with berries. A warm slice of banana bread. Peaches in the summer. A cappuccino with far too much foam.

Make something good. Then, whenever possible, sit down for it. Ten unrushed minutes at the kitchen table can change the entire feeling of a morning.

Give Yourself Time to Get Ready

We love getting dressed. Not because looking polished is a requirement for having a good day, but because clothes have an extraordinary ability to change the way a day feels.

Take the shower. Do your skincare. Put on the lotion that smells incredible. Do your makeup at the vanity instead of balancing it in your hand on the train.

Then open your wardrobe and actually choose. What version of yourself feels right today?

Maybe she wears the dress.

Maybe she wears the go-to jeans, white T-shirt and blazer.

Maybe she ties her hair back, puts on something comfortable and relaxed to make herself feel cozy.

There is pleasure in deciding how you want to present yourself to the world. We think that pleasure is worth indulging.

Put Something Into Your Mind That You Want to Keep

Not everything you consume needs to disappear from your memory thirty seconds later (the results of doom-scrolling).

Read a few pages of a book. Put on an interesting podcast while you're getting ready. Read the newspaper over breakfast. Learn a new word. 

Give your brain something richer than a hundred disconnected videos before 9 a.m. We spend so much time thinking about what we put into our bodies and surprisingly little thinking about what we put into our minds. Both eventually become part of us.

Know What You're Looking Forward to Today

Before you leave, think about the day ahead. Not only what needs to get done.

What are you looking forward to? Maybe you're meeting someone for dinner. Maybe you're wearing a new pair of shoes. Maybe you get to see some family later. Maybe there's leftover cake in the fridge. Maybe nothing particularly exciting is happening, so you decide you'll stop for flowers.

This is the part we care about. Because a good life cannot be made entirely from waiting for the next best thing or event. At some point, we have to become interested in the days in between, to do that, you must romanticize your daily routine.

And Then, Go Live Your Day

Leave the house. Walk somewhere. Work hard at something you care about. Talk to people. Notice things. Change your mind. Eat something delicious. Make plans. Cancel ones you don't want. Learn. Laugh. Get things wrong.

Come home tired because you actually participated in your life. Tomorrow morning, you get another one.

At The Life Extract, a full life is the life we're interested in creating. Full of taste, curiosity, beauty, health, personal style, meaningful work, people we love, places we haven't seen yet and ordinary days we didn't just let pass by.

The good life isn't somewhere else. Most of it is already here.