It’s no secret that what you do in the morning has an impact on the rest of your day. Waking up late, skipping breakfast, foregoing a shower, and rushing through your morning rituals will automatically get your day off to a bad start.
To avoid having bad mornings, or bad days for that matter it’s important to develop a morning routine. This morning routine won’t only guide you into a better day, but it will leave you feeling more accomplished as well as more productive.
The two most important preliminary steps of starting a morning routine are getting enough sleep and waking up early (or earlier). It’s hard to start a morning routine if you are still half asleep and struggling to get out of bed, so always be sure to try and get 7-8 hours of sleep. It’s also difficult to get a a routine rolling if you don’t roll out of bed until the late afternoon. (If this sounds like you, maybe you should work on developing an afternoon routine).
Okay, so now that you know the prelimary steps, it’s time to get started. There are hundreds of things you can include in your morning routine, but it is important to find things that work for you. Here are some common things I do to get my mornings started. (Note, I don’t do all of these things, but I try to do a combination of a few every morning).
- Eat Breakfast.
- Check the stats on all of my sites.
- Respond to emails.
- Write an article.
- Go for a morning run.
- Shower.
- Relax outside.
Now, I know that many of these things probably sound boring or uninteresting to start a day, but each one of these things I consider an accomplishment in some way. And to me, that is what a morning routine should be, a series of accomplishments.
There is nothing better than getting a chunk of work/activities completed when the clock is still spitting out numbers that end in “a.m.”. This is what makes having a morning routine so rewarding. Knowing that you’ve accomplished a lot before many people have even stirred in their beds is an empowering feeling. Not only that, but it leaves you with a more clear schedule for the day so you can do what you want.
What do you do to get your day started?