Tim Ferriss is a best-selling author, angel investor, entrepreneur, and podcast host. Throughout the last decade, Tim has interviewed hundreds of the most successful people in the world. We’re talking people at the top of their fields such as Jamie Foxx, Peter Thiel, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. He’s learned their best practices, tried them himself, and then passed on his favorites to his audience.

One of his favorite questions to ask his guests is “What does your morning routine look like?”. After hearing hundreds of morning routines of the world’s most productive people, Tim has put together a bulletproof morning routine unlike any other.

Ferriss believes that morning routines should be strictly followed. Tim told Forbes that, “in the morning and elsewhere, the more constraints I can create where I fly on autopilot and get a result I need or enjoy, the more horsepower, the more calories I have to allocate to being creative, and to doing things where thinking should actually be applied.”

Tim Ferriss’ Morning Routine

Keep in mind that Ferriss only checks off all five routines 30 percent of the time. “But you can always knock off at least one,” he writes. “And if you tick off three, I find the likelihood of the day being a home run infinitely greater.”

Make Your Bed

“It’s hard for me to overstate how important this ritual has become,” Ferriss writes.
Life will throw all types of curveballs at us. By making his bed every morning, Tim gains a sense of control over his life.  “No matter how s—ty your day is … you can make your bed,” Ferriss writes. “And that gives you the feeling, at least it gives me the feeling, even in a disastrous day, that I’ve held on to the cliff ledge by a fingernail and I haven’t fallen. There is at least one thing I’ve controlled.”

Naval Admiral William H. McRaven also gave a famous commencement speech at UT-Austin in 2014 where he advocated making your bed, saying, “If you make your bed every morning you will have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride, and it will encourage you to do another task and another and another. By the end of the day, that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed.”

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Titanium Tea

Ferriss developed a morning cocktail that immediately wakes him up, which he refers to as “Titanium Tea”. He prefers this mixture over coffee, as it gives him clearer, longer-lasting energy.

To make Titanium Tea you will need the following ingredients:

• 2 Teaspoons of Pu-Erh Black Tea Leaves
• 1 Teaspoon Kabuse Sencha Green Tea Leaves
• 1 Tablespoon of Organic Coconut Oil or Quest MCT Oil Powder
• 1 Tablespoon Grass-Fed Butter
• A pinch of Turmeric and Ginger

To put it all together you will also need:

• Boiled water
• A high-quality tea steeper. I use this one.

To make this tea, Tim takes a flat teaspoon each of pu-erh aged black tea, green tea, and turmeric and ginger shavings, adds hot water, and lets it steep for one to two minutes. Then, in his mug, he’ll add one to two tablespoons of coconut oil or Quest MCT Oil Powder for a dose of medium-chain triglycerides, which some studies have shown to be linked to promoting fat burning.

It’s “excellent for cognition and fat loss,” Ferriss writes.

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Meditation

The second activity in Tim’s success-boosting morning routine is meditation, which allows him to “get 30 to 50 percent more done that day with less stress.” While gathering material for his new book “Tribe of Mentors”, Ferriss found that over 90% of the people he interviewed all had some form of daily mindfulness practice – saying, “Despite the fact that these are people from tennis to surfing to cryptocurrency to fill-in-the-blank, like any field you can possibly imagine — some type of morning mindfulness or meditation practice would span I’d say 90% of the respondents.”

He spends 20 minutes every morning meditating, followed by a two-minute decompression period where he lets his mind do whatever it pleases. Tim practices Transcendental Meditation, Vipassana Meditation, or uses a guided meditation app such as Headspace.

There is an abundance of scientific evidence showing meditation has a tangible positive effect on the amygdala, the part of the brain responsible for emotions, fight or flight responses, and memory. “So meditation, or mindfulness practice, it’s really about, to me, decreasing emotional reactivity so you can proactively create your day and create your life; versus, just being a walking reflex that sometimes screws up,” Ferriss said. Even legendary hedge fund investor Ray Dalio has said that Transcendental Meditation has been “the single biggest influence” on his life, and credits it to his success.

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Light Exercise

This is “light” exercise for a reason. He does not do a full blown workout; rather, he does five to 10 reps of any exercise to wake up his mind and body. Ferriss prefers push-ups, but you could also do sit-ups, squats, burpees, etc.

“The 5 to 10 reps here are not a workout,” he says. “They are intended to ‘state prime’ and wake me up. Getting into my body, even for 30 seconds, has a dramatic effect on my mood and quiets mental chatter.”

After the light workout, Tim will sometimes take a 60-second cold shower.

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Morning Pages

While sipping his tea, Ferriss will then take a seat at his kitchen table to begin journaling. This allows him to get thoughts from his head to paper, clearing his mind and relieving anxious thoughts before the day starts.

Tim uses the Five Minute Journal – writing down three things that he is grateful for and three things that would make the day great.

He also practices the more free-form “Morning Pages” method developed by Julia Cameron, author of “The Artist’s Way”. This method allows you five minutes to lay all your anxieties out on paper, so the thoughts are not distracting you during the day. There is great power to actually writing your problems down on paper. Ferriss wrote on his blog, “Morning pages don’t need to solve your problems. They simply need to get them out of your head, where they’ll otherwise bounce around all day like a bullet ricocheting inside your skull.”

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Creating Your Own Routine

Maybe you want to do the same routine as Tim, or change it up a bit. Remember, he only checks off all five routines 30 percent of the time, aiming to get three of the five routines done. Even if you get part of your morning routine done, you will feel happier and get more done.

Keep this in mind when making your own routine and you will be well on your way to winning the day and becoming a productive machine like Tim.