The
Morning Routine
...and why it sets up your day right.
Have you ever heard the saying, “How you do anything is how you do
everything?” Well, how you spend the first hour of your morning can set
your day up to be a work of art or unruly chaos.
It’s not always possible to plan how the middle of our day goes, but we can
make a choice about how we begin and end each day to ensure we get our
important things done. It’s a well known fact that the most successful people
in the world, from the late Benjamin Franklin and Steve Jobs to Arianna
Huffington, know how to leverage their mornings to ensure they start their
day on a positive and productive note.
GRATITUDE
Gratitude means counting your blessings, appreciating the simple pleasures,
and appreciating everything you have. By practicing a daily habit of gratitude,
you will begin to see and think differently, especially during moments
when you feel stuck in a rut. Regardless of where you are in your life, your
focus can be shifted toward the positive. When we shift our focus from the
negative to the positive, it helps us to see the situation more clearly so that
we stop worrying, and we open our minds to new solutions. Gratitude can
be broken down into three steps: We recognize what we’re grateful for, we
acknowledge it to be true, and then we take a moment to appreciate it.
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Studies indicate that beginning your day with gratitude can rewire your
brain to have a more positive outlook on life.1 Gratitude is a way for us to
appreciate our blessings in life and lessen our feelings of constantly failing or
shortchanging ourselves. For example:
Today I am grateful for…
1. My partner who supports me and has taught me so much about myself
2. Waking up today feeling healthy, happy, and free to live my life
3. My job that allows me to make a living doing what I love
GOALS
The goals section is a daily space to magnetize your mind toward the goals
you’re striving for. By expressing and reviewing these every day, you signal to
your subconscious mind that your thoughts, actions, and decisions should be
directed toward reaching these goals.
We’ve left the goal section flexible so that you have the freedom to define
different goals over time. Some days you’ll write your lifetime goals, and other
times it will be weekly or monthly goals that you wish to achieve.
TODAY’S TARGETS
Today’s targets is the section for your Most Important Tasks (MITs). We have
limited time and resources, so it’s crucial that we spend our time and energy
on the right things.
We tend to take the path of least resistance. When we write a to-do list, it’s
convenient for us to work on the easiest things first so that we can cross them
off our list; however, you won’t find your success by mindlessly spending your
days checking off a to-do list. Prioritized work beats busy work every time.
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The most important tasks that will move us forward are usually not the
easiest, which is why we tend to procrastinate on completing them.
Research has demonstrated that willpower is a finite resource which
weakens throughout the day.2 If you start your day with easy tasks, then
once it comes time to complete the most important (and usually more
difficult) of tasks, you will be much less likely to complete them.
The term “eat that frog” (which is also the title of a great book on
productivity by Brian Tracy), explains how doing the most important and
difficult task on your plate first thing in the morning makes the rest of the
day seem like a cakewalk in comparison.
When prioritizing my daily targets, here are two simple questions I ask
myself:
1. Which task will make me feel the most accomplished?
2. What’s the value in getting this done, and what’s the risk if I don’t?
By prioritizing your tasks and working on the hardest one first, you are much
more likely to complete them and build momentum for the day.
“ If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do
it first thing in the morning. And if it’s
your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat
”
the biggest one first.
~ MARK TWAIN ~
DAILY TIMELINE
The key to having a kick-ass day is to leave ZERO white space on the planner.
Have a plan for your time, write it down, and don’t leave any time without a
plan or it will be, most likely, squandered. The more white space there is, the
more you are not reaching your full potential for the day.
This doesn’t mean working every hour of the day. It means you should be
prioritizing your day and making time for important tasks. Want to go to the
gym? Plan it into your day. If you don’t, it won’t get done. Want to chat on
Facebook? Put a time box around it so that there’s no time for procrastination.
It’s not about working without a break all day. It’s about being intentional with
your time and where you spend it.
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