I Don't Have a Morning Habit. I Have an Order.

Coffee first. Always. Then the to-do list, crossed off as far as I get before the day notices I'm awake.

Journaling and meditating come next, most mornings — the only stretch of the day that belongs to me before it belongs to everyone else.

Some mornings that's all of it. Other mornings there's more. The order doesn't change, even when the rest of it does.

It was never about which five minutes. It's about which twenty are mine before anyone can ask for them.

• journaling
• small habits
• mornings