Getting it on in the morning in bed with the latest trend, Hurkle-Durkling

What is your morning routine? I ask this because the interwebs are awash with people spontaneously answering this entirely insignificant and not much asked question. From the frequency of people volunteering this information, I must conclude that the answer is all important. In previous episodes of this thing called life, one’s morning routine was largely dependent on how quickly you could get out of bed, choke down your breakfast and — depending on your birth order in the family — get shuttled out the door or do the shuttling in the interests of depositing everyone at places of educational import or gainful employment before the bloody bell.

If the latter condition, work, wasn’t part of the equation because a) you were very rich or b) unemployed, then you might slouch around free of this insane morning escapade that technically undermined your will to live on the daily — which then could progressively or very suddenly lead to option c) you were technically dead and, therefore, absolved of all these manic dawn ablutions and machinations.

To witness the joy of the “hashtag morning routine”, now smugly touted everywhere, is to understand that somehow you have failed in every way that you can possibly fail as a human. Do you rise an hour before the dawn and crucially before your alarm clock because your sleep hygiene is awesome? Do you immediately take to a bracing cold shower or, better yet, immersion in an ice bath? (It doesn’t count if your electricity has been cut and the geyser is stone cold, or you’re bathing in last night’s ice floe that’s formed in your bathtub because your primary water source met the fate of the electricity.)

You have to choose to do it. Do you journal for an hour — writing your dreams and aspirations down in long hand and then muse upon your words peacefully while sipping your steeped herbal tea infused with the souls of transcendent Tibetan monks? Do you meditate for half an hour with or without an app? Do you spring into action with an hour of high intensity interval training, thereby increasing your longevity by many moons? Do you sit in your red light sauna to absorb the rays of elevated thinking? Do you walk barefoot upon the ground — to ground yourself? Do you make a high protein, leafy green vegetable smoothie and sip it mindfully? Do you play the all important celestial chords that will ensure peace and prosperity?

You don’t? Shame on you. You’re doomed to failure, and you’ll be blackballed for life from the 5am Club.

Productivity is suffering. I mean that in the best possible way. The world is either slave-driving Asian workers making our devices and clothes, lest they seek a way to sneak out of their relentless slog by jumping to their deaths, or people are questioning why they have to work at all, now that AI is coming our way.

It used to be you knew you were productive by how many bushels of wheat or pales of milk you managed to tot up at the end of a season; how many widgets you made on the Ford production line of your 9 to 5 job; how many classes you taught; how many columns of a witty nature you filed; or how many cups of coffee you served. But work changed, especially after Covid.

For many people it just never stops; everyone feels free to e-mail you at all hours. Do they not know you are busy with, I don’t know, your routines? The work/life thing got stamped with a desire to demonstrate productivity even while productivity became less easy to measure. This became really apparent during the lockdown, when companies installed spy software on people’s computers to ensure they were on them when they said they were.

But is that how productivity really works? Unless you’re making an iPhone in China, or digging for gold for an indefinite shift underground, how do you measure output? Is it by the number of meetings you have, or the number of e-mails you answer? Is it by how long you sit at your desk?

Perhaps this anxiety about production function and the difficulty of actually measuring it in this time of radical change is why we’re suddenly obsessed with morning routines that create an illusion of productivity. If you’ve started your day by crossing off this entire checklist of wellbeing, surely the rest of your day will pan out well? The business will pay off, the running from pillar to post, the answering of texts and e-mails, and scrollings of social media will be offset by this pure Calvinist routine.

All that’s missing is the uniform necessary to execute this strenuous attempt at balance and virtue performed with highminded vigour before your first bowel movement (there’s an ideal routine for that too). Your hair shirt is waiting for you in the cupboard next to the cat o’ nine tails for some light flagellation. It’s really good for blood circulation.

I must confess, I’m writing this column from my bed. No, I’m not sick. Nor have I developed a deep-seated depression in response to my underperformance of morning routines. I’m snuggled here with a strong cup of coffee because I’m testing yet another internet trend. The art of HurkleDurkling. First recorded in Scotland sometime in 1800, it’s what happens when you linger longer than is entirely necessary in your bed for a morning.

The Hurkle-Durkle won’t improve your bloods, but might add years to your life. I’m quite convinced that when your morning routine consists of filling your hot water bottle up again and retreating under the covers, your general stress levels may be so low as to qualify for levitation status.

While others are taking to their early morning routines, and have just stripped off to immerse themselves in the subpolar conditions, you’ve donned your kilt and your sporran and are taking it easy. If anyone asks, you know where to find me, I’m the one waiting the morning routines out. I’ll see you at lunch.