Your morning routine has a strong influence on your day and consequently your life. There are countless famous personalities who have succeeded in their careers and life in general thanks to specific productivity habits that they do as part of their morning rituals. But these practices are more than waiting to wake up and coffee. These are actions that aim to establish a day that is sure to be focused and productive. This blog is all about the morning productivity practices of very successful people and how you can fuse them into your daily routine for an effective and productive day.
Mornings set the stage for the rest of the day
Mornings set the stage for the rest of the day turning the night dreams into reality. And with a way to go, morning routines have a large impression on an individual’s mental and physical health. It has been shown that an organized approach to the first hours of the day will improve not only the overall productivity but also lower levels of anxiety and enhance concentration levels throughout the day. This is something successful people have known for a long time and therefore build their mornings around habits that allow them to work to the maximum of their potential.
Why Successful People Give So Much Importance to Mornings
Mornings are those periods in a day where one can have time to reset one’s life before the hassles of the day set in. According to Tony Robbins, one of the most successful presenters, “How you perform in the first hour of your day will set a tone for the focus and energy you will maintain throughout the day”. Successful people never leave their productivity to luck — they establish habits that suit their purpose and aspirations. These habits have a biological and psychological basis and therefore are good instruments of enhancing one’s productivity.
The List of Productivity Habits Successful People Do Every Morning
Below are the ten of the most remarkable parts of people’s daily routine that appear to greatly make their life successful:
1. Wake Up Early
The practice of waking up early tends to be the base of the many successful morning routines. For Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, mornings may begin at 4:30 or 5 because there is a sleeping pattern that dictates such a routine. Waking early sets an advantage for you and makes sure that there is enough time created for focus on the most crucial tasks of the day with zero to as little disturbance as possible.
Tip: In case you are struggling with sleeping late and waking up early, set your wake up time 15 minutes earlier every day until you get used to it.
2. Start With Gratitude
One of the suggestions made by people like Oprah Winfrey and Arianna Huffington is to start one’s day with gratitude. It takes only a fraction of one’s time and can improve mood and motivation.
Tip: You can slightly open your eyes and lie in bed while keeping a notepad beside your bed and make a note of three things you are thankful for.
3. Drink Water First
People like Richard Branson give a lot of importance to drinking water first thing in the morning. Rehydrating your body and starting your metabolism helps you get rid of toxins from your body and improves cell functionality.
Tip: Get a glass of water and keep it beside your bed. Upon waking, it should be the first thing to come across your eyes.
4. Exercise or Stretch
Being physically active is very important when one needs to improve their energy and focus during the day. This can be done by working out, stretching, yoga, or even taking a dog for a walk. When you move your body, your mind becomes active and ready to take on another day.
Tip: At first do a bit of stretching, nothing strenuous, and as you get used to the routine, increase the time and intensity of the workout.
5. Meditate or Practice Mindfulness
Praise is due for why they rise so high. Steve Jobs and Jeff Weiner are two such people who bear on their heads the crown by incorporating meditation forms in their daily morning regimes. With all these practices, one is able to limit their stress levels. They are also able to successfully increase the level of attention and this makes it easy for them to start the day.
Tip: Morning meditation doesn’t need to take too long. A good 5-10 mins is enough and so during the session, one can invest in a relaxation app like Headspace.
6. Eat a Healthy Breakfast
With breakfast being the first meal, it paves way for the maintenance of your mind and indeed the body. Primarily, doctors will tell you that satiety is the first step to ensure you get an adequate amount of glucose levels, which in turn widens your focus and also improves your mood in general.
Tip: Assuming health is wealth, during breakfast opt for protein and fibre-filled options. Eggs with vegetables or overnight oats with chia seeds would be a good choice.
7. Plan Your Day
Musk is known to be among those prolific and enterprising individuals, and Elon is also counted amongst them. He is very sensitive towards the organization of his duties relevant to the day. Prioritizing takes a couple of minutes, and finding out the desired order of the day will guarantee you that you don’t waste neither time nor resources by panic debating what’s unrequired.
Tip: Many busy executives have perfected the art of commissioning the crucial and quintessential task first. That is the ‘Eat That Frog’ routine. It suggests planning your day in the manner that you take care of the frog (the most important task) first hand.
8. Set Intentions or Review Goals
On taking time off for self-scanning and self-cognitive deepening, self-inspection in the forms of setting intentions or reviewing long-term goals can yield good results in terms of self-motivation. Achievers like Tony Robbins advocate knowing your goals and imagining yourself accomplishing them in a day to achieve positive well-being.
Tip: Always Suspend Relations With New People In The Morning: Write down your three most important goals for the day, and visualize yourself accomplishing them.
9. Avoid Technology
Successful people also try to avoid the use of technology in the first instances when they wake up. Instead, they give themselves such time to focus on personal development and growth as well as plan and set the tone for their day devoid of any interruptions from technology.
Tip: Please Wait At Least 30 Minutes After Waking Up To Touch Your Phone: At this time, your time and energy are of high value.
10. Read or Listen to a Podcast
Exercising reading or listening to podcasts during the mornings is a common practice amongst successful people, including Bill Gates and Warren Buffet as well. This helps in exercising the brain, hence broadening knowledge and even serving the purpose of generating concepts.
Tip: Every morning spend not less than 10 minutes of your time on reading a book or listening to a podcast in an area that fascinates you or relates to your personal growth goals.
Best Practices or Additional Tips
To reap the most out of these morning productivity habits, it is essential that they are adjusted to suit your personal way of life and aims. Here are some extra pointers that can assist you to develop a morning routine that suits your needs best:
Start Small
If you’re new to morning routines, give yourself time to adjust. There’s no need to go all-in with creating dozens of brand new habits and techniques. Instead, start with one, two, or three of them and as you become more accustomed to the routine, gradually add the other habits and techniques.
Stay Consistent
As with most activities that involve change, regularity is key for the success of any habit. Start out with a simplified schedule and follow through it for three weeks to be able to effect change towards breaking that habit.
Track Your Progress
Sharing a chore or working with someone else can be just the thing needed to give you some much-needed motivation. Write down your duty, may it be recording your progress in a morning app or actually accounting for your to-do list.
Final Thoughts
Start out by determining what kind of person you want to be during the day. Remember that there is no such thing as a perfect morning. For most people, mornings can be a whirlwind of distractions, annoyances, and frustrations, so breaking it down into several healthy habits spanning from 5 to 10 minutes each might be all that it takes for you to start noticing changes over a span of several weeks. That being said, most people have their golden rules and strategies to tackle their mornings. What are yours? Let me know down in the comment section.