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You’ve probably heard that a rock-solid morning routine can lead to success. We’re here to tell you that it’s true.
Many successful people credited the activities they do upon waking up for where they are today. These activities often include meditation, an exercise routine, and other acts of self-care that promote positivity. These people usually wake up earlier than most of us, too.
You may not be a morning person. However, you can probably learn from the habits of successful people to jumpstart your own success.
Keep in mind that the things we do and experience in the morning set the tone for how the rest of the day will be.
Fortunately, these days, it’s quite easy to have a morning routine app that helps you get things done the moment you wake up. Looking for inspiration on what constitutes a morning routine? This post has over thirty suggestions for quick habits you can incorporate into your morning ritual.
Moreover, the following benefits are directly derived from having a solid morning routine:
The Rituals in a Morning Routine
Are you wondering what makes a good morning routine? In this article, we profile 34 different habits you can incorporate into a morning routine. However, if you’d like a step-by-step process, then we also recommend the S.A.V.E.R.S. method that’s outlined in The Miracle Morning, by Hal Elrod.
(If you don't have time to read the book, check out our post about the Miracle Morning.)
S – Silence.
Once you’re awake, you can spend a few minutes in meditation or prayer. Focus on your breath. Calm your thoughts. If you think meditation is not for you, you’re not alone. Nevertheless, you can try to sit quietly for a few minutes, focus on your breathing. You might come to love this ritual.
A – Affirmations.
What are your goals and your core beliefs? If you affirm these things – writing them down if you feel like doing so – you will attract them in your life.
V – Visualization.
Imagine your goals coming true. Use as much detail as possible. If it’s a future career, imagine what responsibilities you will have, what your office will look like, and even how you feel about going to work in this future role. The more you visualize your goals coming true, the closer you are to manifesting them. (Use a good goal setting app to help you.)
E – Exercise.
Get active! You can take the dog and walk around the block. It could be a heart-pumping workout right in your living room. Do whatever gets your body moving.
R – Reading.
Mornings are the ideal time for learning something new because the brain is more receptive to information. You might think that the time isn’t enough. However, just spending 5 minutes of intentional reading or learning something can help.
S – Scribe.
Write your thoughts down. Keep a journal to record your morning affirmations, ideas, and your visualizations.
RELATED: 12 Good Morning Routine Habits
Want to build a success-focused morning routine? Well, watch this video to learn about the 12 morning routine habits of the world's most successful people.
We mentioned apps earlier. In this post, we present these morning routine apps that can help you conquer 2024 (and beyond).
And here they are.
Best Morning Routine Apps
1. Alarmy
- Cost: Free
- Best for: Helping you get up early
- Website: Alarmy
- iOS Link: Available in the Apple App Store
- Android Link: Available in the Google Play Store
This has been christened as the “most annoying” alarm app.
But in this case, “annoying” is actually praise. When it comes to getting up early in the morning, annoying can be a good thing. A majority of users rave about how this app has helped them with their morning routine.
The key feature here is the different modes for the alarm. In photo mode, you set up the next day's alarm by snapping a photo of an area or room in your house. This becomes the registered image.
The only way to get the alarm to stop blaring is to get up and take a photo of the registered image.
In shake mode, you are required to shake your phone according to a target you've set earlier. It's a good way to get some physical activity for the day.
Other choices for turning the alarm off include solving puzzles, solving math problems, and scanning barcodes.
2. Streaks
- Cost: Paid ($4.99)
- Best for: Tracking and managing your habits
- Website: Streaks
- iOS Link: Available in the Apple App Store
This app helps you develop good habits. It begins when you choose up to 12 tasks that you wish to develop into habits.
Users of this app love the huge buttons on its interface. It’s very user-friendly.
For health-related activities, the app can integrate with iOS's Health App and check if you are meeting your goals. It helps you keep track of your progress on long-term and short-term projects, making it easy for you to stay motivated.
The timers feature allows you to spend a chunk of your time per day doing a certain activity. Click on a task and the rim around its icon becomes a timer. It’s quite handy, especially if you are doing Yoga in the morning.
Streaks will send you reminders whenever it detects that you are falling behind in meeting your goals. This can help stop procrastination on it tracks.
3. Todoist
- Cost: Free & Paid ($4 – $6 per month)
- Best for: Scheduling, tracking, and managing your tasks
- Website: Todoist
- iOS Link: Available in the Apple App Store
- Android Link: Available in the Google Play Store
If you want to be as productive as possible the moment you open your eyes, this app will help you. You can handle your mornings with ease.
Since Todoist has been designed to be a task-management app, it has a wide array of functionalities that can help you boost your productivity.
One feature that can help you with your morning routine is the recurring task scheduler. If you’re planning to have an early walk every morning, you can schedule this in the app as: “Take walk every! 6:00 am”. That exclamation point cues the app to schedule your morning walk on the time you specified.
Enter your goals and tasks and set reminders for yourself through the day of what you need to accomplish. So if you're starting a new positive habit or needing a daily, weekly or monthly reminder about finishing a project you're currently working on, this app can be a great ally in helping you stay on track.
If you think this app can help you boost your productivity in other areas of your life, head over to this post for an in-depth look and for a Todoist walkthrough and tutorial.
4. Loop Habit Tracker
- Cost: Free
- Best for: Building good habits
- Website: Loop Habit Tracker
- Android Link: Available in the Google Play Store
If you want to develop positive habits, this app is of a great help.
Ease into your morning routine with prompts from this app. Your long-term goals are within reach, especially when you include your morning routine in the habits that you continue to develop.
Use this app to remind you of the things you need to do the moment you wake up.
What users love about this app is its simple and customizable interface, allowing them to choose what priority tasks they can start accomplishing for the day.
If your morning routine includes doing certain things just several days a week (write on gratitude journal at 5:00 a.m. on Tuesdays and Fridays), the flexible schedule feature allows you to set this part of your routine in the app. It’s not necessary to change the schedule every so often, as doing this will put you at risk of losing your streak.
A graph provides you with a detailed view of your progress in developing a habit or accomplishing tasks.
5. Habitica
- Cost: Free (Offers in-app purchases)
- Best for: Gamifying your daily routine
- Website: Habitica
- iOS Link: Available in the Apple App Store
- Android Link: Available in the Google Play Store
Who said that new routines need to be boring? Habitica is all about adding making your habits more fun and interactive.
This app infuses an element of game-playing and a little bit of nostalgia (1980’s Dungeons and Dragons) in helping you get up and attend to your morning routine.
Gamify your goal setting. Its vintage design is a pleasing deviation from the customary designs and interface of most morning routine apps out in the market.
Begin by setting up positive and negative habits you want to work on. Put in a positive habit and do it repeatedly (e.g., “I had breakfast before leaving for work.”) can increase your gold. Alternatively, you can name a negative habit you’re trying to break (e.g., “I procrastinated with my project”). Falling into a negative habit will cost you some losses.
To-do lists in this app will not count against you. However, they can help you earn more points. What can be more satisfying than being rewarded as you cross off items from your to-do list?
In a nutshell: In this app, for you to advance to higher levels in your goal-setting game, you need to complete your daily tasks, practice your daily habits, and cross off what you've accomplished for the day.
6. MealBoard
- Cost: Free (Offers in-app purchases)
- Best for: Meal planning
- Website: MealBoard
- iOS Link: Available in the Apple App Store
Deciding what to eat in the morning can also be a time-consuming task. However, if it's part of your morning routine, then it's time to streamline your process.
The correct meal planning strategies can help you breeze through the task of preparing breakfast so you can take care of other things.
This app is an ideal kitchen partner. Its features provide you with the tools necessary to prepare home-cooked meals at your preferred schedule.
You can use it for storing your favorite recipes for easy access anywhere. It can also import recipes from top cooking websites.
Need help with meal plans? This app can help you plan what dishes to prepare on any given day of the week and on any type of meal that you wish to serve.
It has a shopping list feature that creates a grocery list based on the meal plans you’ve created previously.
If the recipe calls for prep time, this app has a prep notification feature to tell you ahead of time about the tasks you need to accomplish for a particular dish.
The app also checks your stock of supplies and ingredients in the pantry, plus reminds you that you've all set to make a mermaid smoothie for today’s breakfast.
7. Morning Routine Habit Tracker
- Cost: Free (Offers in-app purchases)
- Best for: Minimizing decision fatigue
- iOS Link: Available in the Apple App Store
Here at Develop Good Habits, we believe that the quality of your morning affects the rest of the day, so it’s important to set a positive tone the moment you wake up. The best way to accomplish this is by having the right morning routine habits.
This app helps you have a morning routine that sets a positive tone for the rest of the day. You can set habits to support your goals, or choose from pre-set, customizable routines. This app lets you move from one habit to the next in a seamless way, minimizing decision fatigue related to what to do next.
Some features that users enjoy include:
The app is free, with an option to upgrade to a premium service that starts at $4.99 per month.
8. Sleep Cycle App
- Cost: Free & Paid ($29.99 per year)
- Best for: Tracking your sleep patterns
- Website: Sleep Cycle App
- iOS Link: Available in the Apple App Store
- Android Link: Available in the Google Play Store
This app aims to help you achieve better sleep quality by using its tech to track your sleeping patterns.
An article from Harvard Medical School reveals the impact of sleep quality on a person’s health. One takeaway from the article is that not having enough sleep for an extended period of time shortens one’s life. In order to avoid this, we need to be mindful of our sleeping habits.
The app’s free version comes with the following features to help you understand your sleeping patterns:
In addition to these free features, the following are accessible in the premium version:
(You can check out this post for tips on healthy ways to fall asleep earlier, or this article on how to get better sleep.)
A Final Word on Morning Routine Apps
Although the most challenging part of having a routine in the morning is getting started. The right morning routine app can help motivate you to keep going.
Do not force yourself to do everything all at once. Take things slowly, in a pace that you’re comfortable with. Gently integrate morning activities that encourage you to look at the rest of the day positively. If you feel forced into doing an activity, you may end up being resentful about the whole process.
Do you have a favorite morning routine app in the ones featured above? Or do you follow a certain routine in the morning? We appreciate it if you share your experience in the comments below.
If you're more of a pen-and-paper person, check out these printable morning routine checklists.
If you’re interested to try other good daily habits to enhance the positivity in your life, this definitive list of good daily habits offer over 200 suggestions for energizing your day.
Finally, if you want the perfect morning routine, then check out this seven-step process for creating a morning routine that will become a vital part of your daily life.)
