Insights from Ashton Hall's Morning Routine

For people who don’t know, Ashton Hall is an influencer that got famous quickly due to his comical morning routine and his other memes lately.

When I say famous, I mean really famous. A video on his morning routine got 765.4M views on Twitter so far.

This is purely because of how exaggerated his morning routine is and a backlash that has been waiting on self-help gurus who promote their unrealistic morning routines.

This man’s morning routine was so ridiculous that it started from 3:53 a.m till 9:26 a.m. That’s roughly 5.5 hours of a morning routine.

What does it include? Well, it’s a mega self-help guru’s crash course where he does push-ups, treadmill and swimming to name a few.

The reason why Ashton Hall’s morning routine is so absurd for all of us is because it doesn’t make sense. Why would someone who’s a so-called businessman be related to doing swimming or basic push-ups?

Sure, exercising your body helps but nowhere near as important as actually doing the business if your goal is to be a successful entrepreneur. There is no solid correlation between exercising and business.

Not to mention, while his business is related to exercising itself, the way he does it is obviously not the optimal way to do it.

If you want to get jacked as much as he is, swimming or basic push ups or the funny cold plunges for his face does not have any reasonable benefits nor does doing them every morning help either.

Once you realize this, you understand that it is absurd because this isn’t about effectiveness, it’s about virtue signaling.

That being said, there’s a good chance that this routine has been made with the intention of being absurd or half-joking. Regardless, it tells a lot about the state of self-help industry with the emphasis on showing rather than doing.

Even if your morning routine is so absurd that it requires you playing video games when you wake up or routines such as Brandon Sanderson’s late night deep work which disrupts his morning routine, as long as it's the most effective routine, it solves the purpose.

The goal of a routine is for you to extract value from the routine, not the opposite: being bound by the routines you made for yourself.

Of course, it’s a genuine question to ask yourself after seeing this: What is really a good morning routine? Is there a general routine that applies to everyone or is it a specialized routine that only you can do or both? I’ll try to answer as much as I know considering I was in a similar place.

Answering the question

Before diving deep, it’s important to realize that a morning routine is to a good degree, based on your career and your own unique problems just like any other self-improvement advice.

If your unique problem is struggling with anger, meditation and journal should be on your highest priorities to add to your morning routine.

Of course, an important distinction as to what’s the frequency of your angry outburst. No one is perfect but it’s also important to realize that, it’s the way things are.

If you barely get angry and yet you try to resolve this problem before your severe doom scrolling addiction, then we are missing the point.

Since we aren’t perfect, the best strategy is to use Pareto’s law. It suggests that 80% of your problems come from 20% of the causes.

This means that, few things in your life which make up 20% of the causes affect 80% of your life.

For example, a positive habit would be your cardio. Your cardio is less than 20% of your available causes but considering how it makes you more confident, healthier and disciplined throughout the day, it affects more than 80% of your life.

But it’s important to remember that 80% isn’t a perfect number. It varies from person to person. If you have a single severe problem ruining every domain of your life then it’s most likely, 95/5 compared to 80/20.

Look at life as a game and maximize resolving your problems that deal the most damage in your life. As to what those are, only you know it and this is the ‘self’ aspect of ‘self-help’ advice.

On the career side of things, if you have a blue-collar job, then probably stretching every morning makes far more sense than journaling in terms of maximizing impacts.

Again, the goal is to keep the routine lean and doable. Always create a routine such that you do it on your worst days with ease, not your best days.

General Habits

While I guess you understood the gist of what has been said so far, if you’re someone who understood what I meant but don’t really have any specific idea on what to implement then this section is for you.

It’s only normal and natural to not have an idea considering you never explored your morning routine in depth.

You may be someone who might have a unique problem but didn’t explore to find it or really doesn’t have a unique problem that dominates other problems which leads to a wide array of choices.

That being said, it’s also important to realize that it’s about doing 1-3 things consistently, not trying to add as many as possible like Ashton Hall’s ironic morning routine.

Morning routine is nothing but a slot of time to do habits and the reason why habits are done here is because a certain subset of habits are greatly beneficial when doing it in the morning.

Some are obvious and well-known like stretching, exercising, journaling and many others but here are three habits that I found to be the most helpful and essential:

• Meditation
• Sunlight exposure
• Deep work

Meditation

The best way to derive value from meditation is by meditating even if that’s at an unusual timing of 3pm but the best time to meditate is undoubtedly the morning.

Meditating essentially gives you a little distance or detachment to reality and especially yourself. This allows you to see things from a rational standpoint as much as possible.

Not to mention, meditation is a great grateful tool that allows you to snap back into the present moment throughout your day and reminds you back to what truly matters rather than your busy schedule or the pleasures you partake in.

By meditating in the morning, you access these series of benefits from the time you wake up till you sleep rather than from a random timing till you sleep.

It just makes sense to meditate in the morning and incorporate it into your morning routine as such.

Sunlight exposure

I learnt this habit primarily from Andrew Huberman and it is probably the easiest among many habits.

Not only sunlight exposure helps our body’s internal clock (circadian rhythm) and regulating hormones. After all, a good sleep is the foundation for a morning routine.

If you want to go on a rabbit hole for this topic, check this article.

By taking a walk with your dog or doing calisthenics early in the morning, you can not only have the benefit of exercising but also sunlight. It’s basically one stone for two birds.

Deep work

Last but not the least, deep work is probably the most important one.

Majority of the morning routines don’t mention this and it’s always after finishing the morning routine (including the breakfast) that they finally start working but this isn’t really effective.

It’s best to do deep work in the morning not only because of the unusual focus we get just after waking up but also since no one can disturb us.

While not getting disturbed sounds like a lame reason, it’s important to realize that our day-to-day life isn’t exactly Harry Potter either.

If you're a parent for example, then waking earlier than your kids and having a slot of uninterrupted time of two hours everyday is incredibly valuable.

That being said, deep work doesn't always have to be about your work. If you have been wanting to finish that philosophy book for a long time then a focused reading can be done every morning.

So don’t follow the hype train but instead choose a routine that’s truly tailored and useful for you.

Starting out with a generalized routine is okay but without any alterations or improvements over time isn’t.