The mindset that gets you to do stuff every single day

The Morning Log Trick

If you consistently wake up every morning not feeling like doing anything, this is the perfect trick for you.

I imagine each day encapsulated as a perpetual burning fireplace. To make the analogy even more salient, imagine this fireplace/furnace powering the life you want to one day have. Or even better, powering the train that’s going to get you there.

This means then, the fastest way to get to that life is to make sure this fireplace is always burning. When you wake up, you are freezing because the fireplace is basically almost extinguished, barely surviving on the dried up coals and embers leftover from what you put in yesterday.

Are you just going to sit there, freeze to death and watch your dreams die today?

Hell no.

That’s why the first thing I do is get the heck out of bed and throw a log in there.

Now a log can be anything. If you can muster up the energy to do deep work right out the gate, that’s one meaty juicy piece of log that will sustain the fire for the entire day.

If you can’t, that’s okay. Throw a few shavings and tinder in there to feed the fire a few more minutes so you can muster up the energy later to give it something beefier. Build up to that log if you need to. Just don’t let that fire die. Maybe that’s getting on the ground and doing a few pushups. Going to drink that glass of water. Walking outside and breathing in that fresh air. Point is, do something good for yourself you’ll be proud of later.

Ultimate secret trick of this mindset is to give your fireplace a balanced diet throughout the day. You need a few fat juicy logs, a few leaves, kindling, twigs, shavings, coal. Think about what these things represent in your life.

For me, this is what it looks like:

Giant logs =

Deep work that really pushes my goals forward. This is a must have every day for the fire. In other words, the substance of your day, which becomes the substance of your life. The stuff dreams are made out of.

Medium logs =

Essential for continued sustained growth and life (ex. reading, meditation, working out, socialization)

Twigs =

Relatively quick but important habits you want to keep up with everyday (ex. eating vegetables, flossing, 20-pushups in the morning, drinking a glass of water, kissing your momma on da cheek)

Balance is key with this. Your goal is to keep this fireplace going for dare I say, the rest of your life? Don’t burn out, literally. There’s no need to suffocate your fireplace with 20 giant wood stacks. Likewise, if you just keep on feeding it tinder and scraps of paper, it’s going to burn through that stuff in minutes. Rest of the day will be dark and by extension, your life too.

I’ll extend the analogy a bit more. All that non-productive toxic stuff you are doing? Mindless scrolling, procrastination, 8-hours of gaming where you aren’t even enjoying it anymore… that’s you throwing weird crap into your fireplace… plastic, synthetic fabrics, man-made chemicals… sure, you may get a little bit of warmth from this stuff but it’s pretty short-lived. It’s not meant to burn in a fireplace. The impurity of your fire creates all these noxious fumes you inhale. You’re in effect, poisoning your own life my dude, destroying your lungs and giving yourself cancer.

Best case scenario, you’ve simply wasted one day. Worse case scenario, you’ve blunted your reward systems further by injecting yourself with instant gratification that blunts your typical reward systems, rendering basic rewards (like finishing a productive task and feeling proud of it) meaningless in comparison. No wonder you can’t ever get it together. Tomorrow is just another repeat of today. You need another hit of that toxic stuff to feel basic, let alone good… a simple reflex that repeats itself for the rest of your life. That’s how you trap yourself in a downward spiral of never ending inactivity and procrastination.

So whenever you can, ask yourself, how’s my fireplace doing? What have I fed it today? Is it dying? Am I throwing it garbage? If you haven’t fed it in a while, what’s stopping you?

Here’s a quick poll for you (comment if you want to answer or not):

What kind of logs are you fueling your daily fire with?

A) Deep Work

B) Stuff I don’t care about.

C) Nothing. My fire died years ago.

D) Baby Hamsters