The old me would have just said "I wake up and i sit down" but that is not so true anymore.

For me a day always starts the same - brush my teeth and have a shower. This wakes me up and gets me going for the day. I honestly have no idea how anyone can start a day without it!

Then i will just get a drink, maybe some breakfast, surf the web and then play once i feel i am awake enough and want to basically. I don't do any pre game work but i do site/game select which counts.

I don't personally need to do much just apart from being in the mood. If i am not in the mood i won't play but once i am then there is no stopping me rly. Then i stop playing when i have something else i need to do, fancy a break, not playing well or the games are bad.

I think people doing breathing exercises, meditation, studying and everything else are smart as it works for them but for me it's just something i have never needed/wanted to do.

I need a fair bit of pre-game preparation, if I don't prepare and just sit down to play my brain isn't tuned in and I can lose 2BI before I realize what's happening.

My PC is really bad but on the positive side it has actually helped me prepare in some ways, because I've had to develop a startup routine. Let me explain.

I get up and go to start my PC. This often doesn't work and I get a terrible loud noise from it, so I have to wait there and give the back end a few taps, it quietens down then and logs in. It used to be frustrating but has developed into a pattern, my brain likes patterns.

So,
Machine on at last after 3 or 4 restarts(!) and quiet(ish).
Start PT4 and run a report of yesterdays hands, find the marked hands for review.
Skype and poker site open and minimized to task bar.
Starting hand charts in excel at the ready on screen 2 showing BB ranges, because I'll be posting those first hand; must be ready and settled!

Downstairs, put the dog out, feed the mrs and me, get the dog back in and make coffee.

Upstairs again to see if my coach wants me to do anything in particular today - besides win loadsamoney ofc - and to chat with the group if anyone is around.
I find the group is so positive, especially the coach, that it's hard not to get revved up for a game, so I do that before every session.

Next I go to the forums for HH posting and replying, even if it's only one or two it gets me thinking poker.

Then I look for a video of a favourite coach, even a revisit, doesn't matter if I've seen it, that's good anyway for consolidation. I need a favourite coach vid because I can hear their voice when I play saying what they would do, so the voice needs to be comfortable or it gets distracting. My favourites so far are Jon and Darius. Nothing wrong with others, I just like those voices in my head when I play.
That point is very important to me for poker mindset, they are so calm and matter-of-fact in a game. I use the voice as much as the content before a session

Loading up the games now and always feel positive.

Let's gogogo!

I think that's most of it.

Thanks for the replies guys. Interesting and pwll's was quite humorous. Sorry to here about all the computer issues. I think that would drive me nuts, not put me into a zen like poker state.

I still don't really prepare, but I think I would like to. I was like P though. I used to just sit down and and be down a couple buy ins before I realized it and would spend the next hour or more just fighting my way back to even. That doesn't really happen much anymore. I might go down a little, maybe half a buy in at most, but find myself just doing well from the start and can, in most cases, say that even when I lose it was mostly due to variance, but still making good decisions.

I think that with my increased passion for the game and my desire to really give 100% to poker now and make 2016 my year in poker, that I find myself just thinking about poker and the things that I am learning on a constant basis. I am usually reading watching or thinking about something poker related whenever I have downtime from the hotel and properties that I manage here. Now when I sit down to play I already have poker on the brain so it doesn't take much to get me playing well. I think I have also internalized some stuff and things like opening ranges are becoming more second nature, freeing my mind up to think about other things and start implementing concepts or ideas I may have read about or watched.

P's comments about HH and PT4 will be a lead in to my next questions about evaluating and analyzing your play. The sound similar but are in fact 2 distinct things that I want to start incorporating. They aren't things that I have done much in the past and I know I can improve greatly by doing them. I was going to start a new thread but in essence they are things that you do to prepare so I think I can leave it here.

Was curious P, are you a staked player? Is the coach and skype group something with that or are they separate?

At the moment, I just make sure I have a double espresso in me before a session to wake me up!

A good warmup routine is definitely something I want to work on though! I like the idea of reviewing a few sticky hands from my DB before playing as @Pwll mentioned!

Normally I start of by reading or watching something on PokerVIP. Mainly because I want to make sure I'm constantly absorbing information and progressing but also as pre-game prep.

I have three A-3 whiteboards on my wall where I write my notes on areas I can improve in. For example 'pay attention to screen names'. I jot these down every time I want to take something from a video or article or wherever and introduce it to my own game.

Then before the game I'll take two or three of these adjustments in my game to focus on until I've fully implemented it into my game. Then I wipe them off my board once it's become part of my normal game. It makes sure that I'm always getting better!

In business it's called total quality management if you'd like to learn more about those systems. The manufacturing industry is notorious for it.

I used to just play without any sort of routine but I have always done a little meditation in the 5 min break of my tournys especially when it gets deep, just for a minute or two to make sure I am calm.
Now I play more cash games I have started going to the gym before a session then having breakfast in a cafe with my laptop whilst i watch poker videos or do some other theory stuff. I think its good to get out of the house and thinking about poker before I start my session. I still take short breaks every hour or so when playing and sometimes do a little 1-2 minute meditation if I am feeling a bit tilted which I find helps.

Empty the bladder.

Like this idea a lot with the white boards and something which is so simple and pretty god damn old school but you are physically writing it, thinking about it and seeing it. This has to be better than a lot of other 'study' methods. Really like this and well worth others giving it a try.

When meditating where does your mind wonder? Are you thinking about the up coming grind or is it normally just off topic and just a general relaxation state?

Haha yep simple yet effective.

What I do is sit comfortably on the floor and focus my eyes on a spot just in front of where I am sitting. I then breath in quite slowly and deep whilst counting each breath up to 10 and then start back at 1 again (so I don’t have an overall count to get hung up on). The aim is to be in a relaxed state and to not to let my mind wander so I am not trying to think about the grind, but of course my mind has other ideas! When it wonders I just try to bring my thoughts back to counting my breathing again. The same with my gaze, I just bring it back to focusing on that one spot if I find it has wondered.

I find that this helps me act in a more calm considered way when I play after, and particularly when I take a break from the tables after feeling a bit of tilt or stress.

I'm up to 25 min a day on my Meditation challenge, and I'd say that I get about 3 whole minutes of effective meditation...and even that is probably a generous estimate. Of course the mind wanders! Composing messages, thinking about poker hands...eventually I recognize that the mind is wandering, and I bring it back to my breathing. That lasts a few breaths, then off the rails again.

I think one major barrier, for me at least, is that meditating is HARD. You'd think it'd be so easy to just sit there and focus on your breathing, but it is one of the hardest things I've tried to learn. I have to remind myself every day that it's OK to be bad at something, to be a beginner who has a lot to learn.

Has anyone ever tried Elliot Roe's warm up hypnosis mp3s as a warm up?

Not sure how effective it is since I've only tried a few times, but you sure do feel happy and motivated after!

@CycleVancouver You meditate for 25 mins a day? That’s impressive, I only do maybe a minute or two at a time. I have tried to do it for longer but I think hours have passed to only find that it’s been a few minutes. What’s your mediation challenge?

No, where can I find it? Also what is it, is it a warm up for poker? If it is I am a bit worried its a ploy to secretly hypnotise unsuspecting players into stacking off with 72

Haha not quite, its more motivational and to help you stay focused longer. the warm up one is like a guided visualisation of you feeling good through your session no matter what happens.

His site is http://www.pokermindcoach.com

He has a free tilt buster hypnosis found here that you can try. http://www.pokermindcoach.com/tilt-buster/

I got the free warmup one from a book i purchased. Don't have the link available sorry.

I try to spend at least 15 minutes reviewing some part of my game which I've been working on. This can be something as simple as revising a new BTN opneing range vs two unknowns to the maths of a complicated turn raise spot in a multiway pot. The idea is just to get your brain into gear.

I used to just try and do something to relax which seems to be common advice, but came to realise that if I wasn't in a relaxed frame of mind then I certainly wasn't going to arrive at that point in the next ten minutes. I would just abandon the session at that point and work on my game instead.

Being able to relax yourself is a trainable skill, but it's not something I'm good at for sure, maybe some of you guys can go from stressed to fully relaxed in ten minutes, but I definitely can't.

@Oblong thread is here: https://www.pokervip.com/en/forum/lifestyle-off-topic/meditation-challenge

I haven't been updating it since there hasn't been much to say. I start a class next week, will post then.

Most players hate to practise math. It's not fun, so it's not done. And yet poker is a game of numbers, and the better you are at poker math the better decisions you can make. This actually implies to pretty much any poker concept. To know something doesn't mean you have learned it perfectly. In Tendler's book he show Adult Learning Model which comes true to any skill we want to learn. And in poker we want to have as many skills at level of automation as possible. Including math.

I often advice people to do 1-3 calculations (repetitions) before the session. If you play on daily basis that is over 20 repetitions a week. Often that is 20 repetitions more than your opponents are doing.