Mornings may or may not be your most favorite time of the day but don't you agree that a good morning routine can really set the productivity tone for the rest of the day? Without having a healthy morning habit during the morning, it feels like the rest of the time left is just trying to catch up with everything.
Here's a blog originally posted by Trello.
Some days, you're completely focused on every detail: preparing a large breakfast, trying out various haircuts, and attempting to meditate. On other days, you shirk regularity and slip into your home office with yesterday's shirt on and inhale some fresh air for breakfast. It happens.
While a great morning moment can feel pretty magical, there’s more to the perfectly productive day than mystical forces at work. A morning routine that leads to productivity is in fact a science that you can implement in your own life. But is there a right way to have a productive morning? Does it really lie in a morning ritual and healthy breakfast?
After analyzing the advice and routines of six top productivity experts, it became clear that there are a few important elements that many successful people include as part of their day to have a productive morning. Let's dive into the details of these great routine habits, and how successful people get a routine to stick day in, day out.
Wake Up at Your Right Time
We've all heard that morning people are the high achievers: “You've got to be part of the 5 am alarm club! If you've slept in past 6 am, then you're behind already!” or the infamous "The early bird catches the worm!" And to make it even worse, they'll suggest hopping right into a cold shower. Groan. Where's the snooze button? Do a few minutes or hours of sleep difference really matter?
The most important thing isn't what time you get out of bed it's getting in tune with your body's clock for a good routine. A healthy morning routine may be the most important no matter what time you wake up. According to Sleep.org, your body actually knows what it should be doing and when. Don't force yourself to be part of the 5 am club if you can't fall asleep before midnight. Getting enough sleep and waking up when your body is ready will lead more often to a productive day than making a habit of forcing yourself out of bed hours before your brain is ready that's a recipe for burnout. Plus, the habit won't last long. If you're not a morning person, you can't force it and your body will only work with you for a few days before it says "no more!"
Eliminate Decision-Making Tasks in the Morning
Sometimes the best way to have a productive morning is to get a head start on it the night before.
Planning the evening before is effective because we have a limited amount of willpower and decision-making ability every day. The thought of making too many decisions in the morning will slow you down and drain your brain for the rest of the day. If you can eliminate decision-making from your mornings, you'll have more energy and time to have the most productive morning you can. So write out your daily to-do list the night before, Make it a habit!
Create a Morning Routine to Focus Your Mind
According to Claire Diaz Ortiz, productivity expert and author of Design Your Day, the best thing you can do to be productive is to create your ideal morning routine. She explains that how you start your day anchors you and ensures you stay focused on what is most important. You must master a consistent morning routine to achieve your highest level of productivity!
Although there's not one-morning routine that works well for everyone, there are some key elements that make a morning routine most effective. They mostly all have an element of focus on big-picture goals, gratitude, and planning for the day's time.
You don't need a lengthy meditation routine. Yoga, meditation, journaling, reading, or a quiet walk focus on the outcome, not the practice to get the most out of this special time where you can focus on yourself and center on your heart's content.
You just need something that helps you set your mind on what you want to focus on for the day and set your heart and mind in the right attitude for the day.
Move Around and Hydrate
When you feel great, it will make it all that much easier to handle that alarm. You might not be excited about the idea of a morning workout. Maybe it's hard enough to just get out of bed, let alone run around the gym. But you don't have to lift weights or go for a jog. Simply moving around will get your blood flowing and help you get your day started. While you're moving around (and working up a bit of a sweat), make sure to stay hydrated. What you put in your mug matters: Drinking water in the mornings will kick start your day and give you lasting energy all day long.
Eat the Frog Or Tadpoles
After you get your personal morning routine organized, it's time to take action for a productive day.
Brian Tracy, author of "Eat the Frog," bases his morning philosophy off of a quote from Mark Twain:
"If the first thing you do each morning is to eat a live frog, you can go through the day with the satisfaction of knowing that that is probably the worst thing that is going to happen to you all day long."
The "frog" he is talking about is your most important task or work the one you're dreading the most because it's so big and important that it’s looming over you. Building the habit to do your biggest task first can give you a huge boost of accomplishment first thing.
But starting the day with your most daunting task is, well, daunting. It can be too easy to procrastinate, making it even harder to get your day started. Sometimes, clearing away a few small tasks early on can give you the momentum to tackle your frog.
Whether you work better by eating the frog or tackling some small tadpoles first, find your ideal rhythm and get started right away!
Creating Your Ideal Morning Routine
Mornings don't have to be rough. By doing a few focused things when you wake up, you can set yourself up for more productivity throughout the day. If it seems daunting to overhaul your morning routine all at once, introduce one new practice a week and see if you notice improvement.
After all, they say if you win the morning, you win the day. Don't we all want to win at life?
