Amy Landino is on a mission to help you go after the life you want, starting with a morning routine that launches and grounds productive days.
A good morning is key to making a good life
Amy Landino is the award-winning host of AmyTV, a YouTube series dedicated to helping women go after the life they want. She’s also the host of a fascinating podcast called Detail Therapy, an internationally popular public speaker, and a best-selling author. Amy and her husband live in Columbus, Ohio, with their adorable dog. I had a wonderful conversation with her about how she is making a life that matters!
Amy has been a YouTuber for nearly 10 years. That journey began with her passion for creating stories to share online and helping businesses do the same.
Her individual brand online has taken the direction of helping women who are going after the life they want. She talks about topics that cover more practical areas in the sense of making the most of the time that you have and what it looks like to be able to prioritize yourself. She says it’s important that you understand where you are spending your time, and being clear on the reasons why you’re doing what you do.
A typical day
The only typical part of Amy’s day is her morning routine, which starts with her rising at 4:30 am.
The first thing she does when she wakes up is to “learn how to be human,” because she is not a morning person. She calls the first half-hour of the morning the last part of her “sleep buffer period,” where she is still kind of asleep, but she’s also trying to wake up. During that half-hour period, she goes through her skincare routine, makes herself a glass of lemon water (Amy drinks 16 ounces of lemon water every morning) while also brewing coffee, and starts to put her thoughts together. She does Morning Pages as a mindfulness practice to deal with all the thoughts that come rushing to her. (The practice of Morning Pages is something she learned from Julia Cameron’s book The Artist’s Way and is simply the practice hand-writing 3 pages of stream-of-consciousness writing.) It helps her clear the cobwebs of her mind.
After that, she reviews her goals and rewrites them, rewrites a passage of affirmation, gets her bullet journal ready for the tasks of the day, and then she moves into eating her first frog of the day, meaning tacking the first big task she needs to get done for when no one is bothering her. This is her opportunity to dive into what she is passionate about before the emails and requests from other people start to intrude on her day.
After that, on some days Amy gets ready to go into her office to work with her team. Other days, she is jumping on a plane to fly out of town or filming content for her YouTube channel, which is done in her home office. Her days depend on what is on deck for her, but the morning time she has with herself is how she keeps a little bit of predictability in her life, so the rest of her day can work itself out.
Amy is a fan of good sleep and doesn’t recommend getting up early to get a few extra hours of your life if you haven’t gotten good sleep. Amy sleeps for about 7 to 7.5 hours a night, and she is usually in bed by 9 pm, ready to drift off.
Even when Amy is on the road, she tried to keep her morning routine as consistent as possible. When she travels, she’s often unable to take all her journals with her, so she’ll focus on reading or do her morning pages on the notepads available in the hotel room. The point is to remember that you can’t get to all the things all the time, and sometimes, you can’t get to any of those things. The most important thing is to take a few moments for yourself before you let the rest of the day get to you. You will get back to your routine, and if it’s truly a routine, you’ll be fine.
“Good morning, good life”
Amy started a video episode with “Good morning, good life”as an opener one day, and that was that. And when she was thinking about what her next book would be called, that was it. It was a happy accident, although she wishes it came out of a great mastermind. When you give yourself a prompt, it makes it easier for you to kick off your video. Furthermore, having a familiar opener allows the creator and the viewers to have a moment of connection which then gives the creator the momentum to “wing it” from there. She tried it, loved it, and it worked out as a book idea as well.
Amy’s new book, Good Morning, Good Life, lays out 5 simple habits to cultivate so you can have a morning that is right for you, that will help you start your day on your terms. Amy thought much of the morning routine advice out there was very specific and doesn’t work for those who don’t identify as morning people. This was the motivation behind writing this book.
Amy believes there are five habits that can make it a lot easier, specifically three guidelines to follow in the morning. If you fill these three buckets with whatever feels right to you even if it only takes 15 minutes, it may be a lovely change-up for you in that you’re not giving away your day to someone else first thing in the morning.
1. Movement: Amy does a little bit of stretching and moves the muscles around on her face. Going to the gym first thing does not excite Amy. But if that is what works for you, do it!
2. Mindfulness: Amy does her Morning Pages. For others, it may be meditating or wiping down the countertop or reading. What is something you can do to connect and be present with your thoughts?
3. Mastery: Mastery, in Amy’s opinion, comes in the moment when people realize they have been helping someone else build their dream instead of working on the project or passion they’ve wanted to pursue.
Biggest productivity challenges
Amy’s biggest challenge is that every day is different, but she recognizes that this is also the biggest blessing, and her morning routines are what keep her grounded.
Another major challenge in her life was getting married. Amy has been independent from a very young age, so she jokes it was a major curveball for her when she learned someone liked her so much, he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. Keeping communications open has been key to balancing their differences and making sure they spend time together because Amy gets up early in the morning, and her husband is a night owl, and they are also co-owners of their business. The question they ask themselves is “How do we make time for each other and do it in a way that benefits both of us so nobody has to change who they are, but rather complement each other more?” Every last bit of it comes down to communication. The struggle arises when you are not fully communicating: Who you are, who you want to be, what you’re hiding from, and what obstacles and tribulations are you trying to avoid when you would be better served to hit them head-on, so you do not trip on those eggshells.
Tools Amy recommends
To Amy, the calendar is a beautiful thing, and she lives in her Google calendar. Amy has many lists, but those lists don’t dictate how much time she actually has to do the things on those lists. She emphasizes calendar blocking and task batching and makes sure the things that matter get scheduled on the calendar.
What happens on a day when everything gets away from you?
Amy says it happens all the time. When things do get out of hand, Amy calmly reassesses the situation and asks when she can reschedule things. When she completely misses the boat on something, she says “you just gotta let it go.”
One thing Amy continues to grapple with since childhood is perfectionism. If something didn’t happen, and when something doesn’t turn out the way she wants it to, there is a reason for that. So she asks herself why something went the way it did and what she can learn from that instance.
What’s on the horizon for Amy?
Amy is very excited about continuing to work with her speaking agent, and she is also looking forward to going on book tours for Good Morning, Good Life in 2020.
Last thoughts on making a life that matters
“You probably have more than just one person in your brain when you’re considering what a life that matters looks like. I invite you to continue to consider those people, but remember that it is truly your life, and that everyone is going to make the decision that is best for them when push comes to shove. This is really your only opportunity to live this life. Remember that and follow your gut on what’s going to be best for you, and what’s going to be the best version of you because you are truly doing this for those people if you really follow through on that.”
What do you think?
Do you have any questions or comments for Amy or me? Please share them in the comments section below this post or in The Productive Woman Community Facebook group, or send me an email.
Connect with Amy
More about Amy
Amy Landino is the award-winning host of AmyTV, a YouTube series dedicated to helping women go after the life they want. With millions of views and more than 300,000 subscribers, she is a leading authority on getting digital attention. Amy is a professional speaker, traveling the world to teach businesses how they can get the attention they deserve online and she shares her insights on this in her best-selling book Vlog Like a Boss: How to Kill It Online with Video Blogging. At Aftermarq—the video production studio Amy co-founded—she and her associates provide digital video production for brands who want to grab the attention of those who matter to their mission, helping them grow to their maximum potential.
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