This morning I woke up at 5am, went for a nice 30 minute run, had breakfast, sat on the patio for a slow meditation, and followed my usual “choose 6” routine to choose my vibe for the day.
I think what I did in the early window was Design the day positively – Decide what kind of day I want to have while everything is still quiet, and then let other things decide for me.
If I don’t consciously occupy the time at the beginning of my day, other things in the world will occupy it for me. News may fill it. Your inbox may have a say. Other people’s urgency may influence it. Headlines, emails, other people’s agendas – they all stand on the edge of the morning, happy to set the emotional tone before I’m done with it myself. Then the rest of the day can easily carry over that tone. I could spend the next few hours taking action in a direction I never really chose.
So the approach is simple: Make a conscious choice first.
Choose six words to shape your day
This is the specific version I’ve been applying since last year.
I keep a deck of index cards, each with a mood word on it—things like “joy,” “flow,” “savour,” “ignite,” “immerse,” “explore,” and 100 more. Some words are practical, some are playful, and some are emotional. This deck is as broad as my life is. I made the first batch by hand – just single words naming the different energies I might want to engage with. The core vibe of each card is located in the middle of the card, and the four corners contain relevant words that I associate with the core vibe. All of these are verbs because I like to think of vibration as a way of moving energy rather than a frozen snapshot.
Every morning, I pick six of these cards and stick them on a dedicated board in my office, as shown here. The tacks have magnets on top so you can easily swap out new cards without poking holes in them.
That’s the whole ritual. I scanned the deck, noting which words gave me an intuitive nudge, and then selected six words that I wanted to set the tone for the day. This morning’s themes are Integrate, Clarify, Listen, Design, Build, Stabilize – which tells me that today I want to root and solidify what has been flourishing recently, rather than launch anything new. On another morning, I might be tempted to pick out cards like “Ignite,” “Energetic,” and “Playful,” which would give the day a completely different shape. These cards do not determine my mission. They named feel the space I want this day.
This morning I incorporated this practice into a personal life navigation app I’ve been working on, so now I just click on the cards I want. I took photos of the cards in groups of 25 (125 cards in total) and let AI extract the words and create digital versions, including assigning emojis to each card. Thanks to AI processing coding, it took me 15 minutes to add this feature to my app.
But the simulated version works just as well, and there are some benefits to dealing with physical cards at the table. If you want to try it yourself, you won’t need anything but index cards and a pen (I used colored markers).
It’s about energy choices, not output choices
I experience life as the movement of energy—I can let the energy flow run by default or I can shape it intentionally. The early part of the day is one of the highest leverage times for shaping this energy, as whatever tone is set early tends to spread forward. Mornings that start with a reaction tend to keep the reaction going. Mornings filled with wonder and joy tend to have a very positive impact on the day.
When I let someone or something else set the tone, I’m essentially outsourcing the emotional design of the entire day to the things that hit me hardest. I’d rather design it myself – not to control the details of the day, but to flow with the atmospheric landscape I’ve actually chosen.
This is the part that surprised me: Designing the day is mostly about Subtractionnot addition. It’s not just the vibe cards I choose that matter – it’s also the ones I notice but don’t choose. In practice, I usually pick around 10-12 cards on the first pass, and the most interesting decisions are the last few cards I release. These decisions help me focus every day by pointing out what I intentionally choose not to inject. This simple practice of consciously choosing your core energy for the day can be more helpful than you think, especially when it comes to focus.
Try it tomorrow
If any of this resonates, here’s a simple version to try.
Tonight, write a dozen vibe words on an index card—whatever energy you really want to feel throughout your day. Tomorrow morning, before you touch your phone, pick a few. Sit with them for a few minutes. Then let the day unfold from there.
You might be surprised how your day can reshape itself according to the tone you deliberately choose. I’ve seen on many occasions how these vibes can fit into my day in surprising ways, even if I’m only loosely aware of them. When I go to replace them the next day, I often think back to how they performed the day before.
This month I’m re-establishing some positive rhythms—more running, more creative engagement, more thoughtful design of how my days actually flow—and this little exercise has quietly become one of my favorites of the last year. It costs next to nothing. This is an effective defense against the effects of interference. It allows me to treat each day as something I’m creating rather than just something happening to me.
Either way, the day will take shape. Or it could be the one you choose.
