How to Make Your Mornings More Productive
Mornings have an enormous impact on your day.
Your entire day can be influenced by how well you sleep. What you have for breakfast. How bright or dark it is outside. How much work you get done.
Suffice it to say, if you get your morning right, the rest of the day flows much more smoothly. And I have never had more productive and smooth days in my life since I started following the tips below.
Here is how you make your own mornings productive too.
Step 1: Wake up at the same time, every day
Consistent sleep is imperative for consistent success.
No matter if you are a disciplined person or not, having a consistent sleep schedule is a necessity if you want to become consistently productive. You can go to bed whenever you want, as long as you wake up at the same time every morning. After all, your performance in the mornings depends on your schedule being somewhat predictable.
You don’t have to wake up early — just at the same time every day.
Step 2: Make your bed, first thing in the morning
This quick task influences your mindset dramatically.
When you make your bed, you establish an outer orderliness and inner readiness for the day. When you leave your bed unmade, you create disorder in your environment — and by extension, your mind. Whereas a tucked-in bed signals that sleep time is over, an unmade bed muddles the boundary between rest and work.
Making your bed takes less than a minute but impacts every hour of your time awake.
Step 3: Avoid (or reduce) sources of dopamine
Dopamine distracts.
It makes it more difficult to concentrate on other, more important or more boring tasks. Keep your sources of dopamine low for the time that you wish to be productive. That means as little screen time and entertainment as you can — depending, of course, on what your lifestyle is like.
Restrict your dopamine levels for the evenings, after your productive work.
Step 4: Establish a productivity zone
Zoning is one of the easiest, most rewarding habits in the productivity landscape.
The idea is simple: You dedicate different areas of your home to different activities, to create stronger mental associations between these spaces and their respective tasks. By making a specific desk or chair or part of the windowsill your designated productive-work space, you can increase your output over time. Thus, it is a good idea to create a space for your productive mornings — and avoid doing any other tasks there.
Remember: Your bed is already made, so you cannot return there.
Step 5: Do the most important thing first
Postponing a task only prolongs stress.
To avoid this, you can follow Gary Keller’s recommendation to do the one thing that would make the day a success. This task is important to you personally, and it can be anything from finishing your essay to running around the block. This is usually also the hardest task to get done — but that just makes it more important to get out of the way quickly.
Doing the most important thing first eliminates that source of stress early.
Step 6: Make everything ready for tomorrow morning
The best way to make a future task easier is to prepare.
To make your following morning easier, you should make it so that the routine outlined above becomes easier to follow. For instance, check your alarm, place your phone away from your bed, and make sure the tools and materials you need for your productive morning are where they need to be. This is something you can do before you go to bed, and it should only take a couple of minutes.
Ready, set, go!
Additional step: Establish a morning routine that works for you
The steps above work regardless of your personal morning routine.
However, most of us — including myself — need a little time in the morning before we get to Step 5 and work. This is where your morning routine comes into place. There are many different ways to have a productive morning routine, but here are some suggestions:
· Eat breakfast
· Open your window
· Go for a walk / Work out
· Do some stretches
· Journal
As long as you follow the other steps in this process, your mornings will be productive.
Summary
Step 1: Wake up at the same time
Step 2: Make your bed immediately
Step 3: Reduce sources of dopamine
Step 4: Establish a productivity zone
Step 4.5: Weave in your morning routine
Step 5: Do the most important task first
Step 6: Make everything ready for tomorrow morning
