What often separates a bad day from a great day is a good morning routine. Here is a morning routine to create more great days.
Video by BetterThanYesterday
Key Takeaways
What often separates a bad day from a great day is a good morning routine. How you start your morning can affect your entire waking hours. If you begin your morning with momentum, you can keep it up until you’re back in bed at night.
Here is a morning routine to be more productive. It might not work as well for you since everyone has different goals and different schedules. However you might get some ideas which you could implement and tweak in your own routine.
1. Wake Up
Most of the time I wake up naturally without an alarm clock. I go to sleep and wake up at almost the same time every single day, so my body knows when it’s time to roll out of bed. This way I always get up well rested. The alarm is just a backup plan so I don’t sleep in.
2. Drink Water
When I open my eyes, the first thing I do is drink a glass of water, sometimes two glasses. Whenever you wake up, you are often dehydrated, which means you’re more likely to feel tired and fatigued.
By drinking water first thing in the morning you’ll be eliminating that feeling of tiredness. This is why the night before, I leave a glass of water on my nightstand, so when I wake up, it’s already waiting for me.
3. Stretch
Then I jump out of bed and I stretch. Lying in bed all night can cause your muscles to tighten and it’s a good idea to release any tension. I stretch until I don’t feel stiff anymore, which is for about 5 minutes. This also allows me to stay flexible and helps me prevent any unnecessary injuries.
4. Review Plans for the Day
After I’m done I go review my plans for the day. That’s how I know what I’ll be working on today and I let my mind think through it, for the duration of the morning.
5. Something Productive, but Not Too Demanding
Now this is where I used to start my meditation, but I don’t meditate in the morning anymore. I’ve found that meditation works better for me when I do it in the middle of the day. It helps me relax and refocus my mind, but I don’t really need that in the morning as I’m already in a mindful state.
So instead of meditating, I clean my apartment. I do the dishes, clean the table, maybe sweep the floor or I do my laundry. I let my mind slowly wake up while doing something productive, but not too demanding, with my body.
I have to do all these things sooner or later anyway and usually I feel no resistance doing them in the morning. I do this in complete silence, so I’m alone with my thoughts. You could say it’s a form of mindfulness exercise. However from time to time I will listen to a podcast or something informational. Audiobooks are also a great choice.
6. Exercise
Next I go on a 30 minute run or hit the gym. I do this to prepare my brain for the workload up ahead. Aerobic exercise primes the brain for learning and makes it more focused.
If the weather is bad and I can’t go for a run outside, then I’ll exercise with a jump rope instead, or do some body weight training to get my heart rate up. Exercise is a core part of my life and I never skip it, since it always makes me feel amazing.
7. Shower
When I’m done, I’ll take a shower. I start my showers warm, but I gradually decrease the temperature to cold. I find that the cold water wakes me up further and I feel much more energetic and alert.
8. Coffee/Tea
Before starting work, I’ll prepare myself a cup of coffee or a cup of tea. I’ll choose one or the other, depending on how much caffeine I want to consume. Some days I don’t drink anything caffeinated and go for water instead.
9. Deep Work Session
Note that I purposely skip breakfast. That’s because I personally work more efficiently on an empty stomach. Whenever I’m stuffed with food my mental process slows down and I can’t seem to do my best work.
Now this is where I’ll start my deep work session.
- My desk is usually filled with things I don’t really need do to my work. So I’ll move all those things somewhere else, this way I can fully focus on the task at hand.
- Then I’ll eliminate all possible distractions by closing any unnecessary browser tabs and putting my phone on silent, to prevent any notifications.
- I make sure my desk is clean and everything I need for work is there, so I don’t need to jump around looking for it. Basically this is my way of preparing to be focused on one single task.
My favorite way to get the wheel going is to start a pomodoro timer. This is my launching pad into deep work.
The Pomodoro Technique is:
1. Choose a task to be accomplished.
2. Set the timer to 25 minutes and work until the timer rings.
3. Take a 5 minute break and restart the task.
This is my preferred productivity technique, because it helps me break that mental resistance we often have before starting something.
If you say to yourself that you’ll work on something for 2 hours, it’s so difficult to bring yourself to even start. But if you say that you’ll work on it for just 25 minutes, you’re way more likely to begin. A
Since it’s hard for me to get started, but super easy to keep on going, this is the perfect technique for me, and I encourage you to try it for yourself.
And that’s pretty much my current morning routine.
But you should know that not every day looks like this. I’ll also have days where something comes up and I won’t complete my routine. Sometimes life will just get in the way of things, and it’s not something I can control.
What’s important is that I’m consistent with it and the overall trend is there. It doesn’t matter if I miss a day as long as I’m generally sticking to it. It’s far from a perfect routine and I’m also constantly changing and adapting it to my current goals and needs.