I've tried morning routines. The elaborate kind — the journal, the meditation, the cold shower, the reading, the no-phone-for-the-first-hour. Some of it stuck for a while. Most of it didn't.
What has stuck, consistently, for almost two years now, is a habit that takes about five minutes. Before I look at email or Slack or my phone, I look at the board. The kitchen board and then the office board, in that order.
The kitchen board tells me what the day needs from a household perspective. If something went up last night that I hadn't seen, I see it now. If there's something I put up that my wife has already handled, I erase it. This takes two minutes.
The office board is a different kind of check. What did I leave myself last night? What's the most important thing I should start with? Is there something I was blocked on that I might have an answer to now — I find sleep is underrated for unblocking technical problems. This takes three minutes.
After that I open the laptop. The board has already organized the mental model of the day. I'm not walking into email cold and letting it tell me what matters. I already have a sense of what matters. Email and Slack get to inform that picture, not define it.
This is not a miracle habit. Most days are still chaotic. But the days I skip the board check are noticeably worse — I end the day feeling like I reacted to everything and initiated nothing. Five minutes at the board seems to be what tips the balance.