@Taylor
Thanks for requesting this blog. I always have fun role-playing as the smart/productive friend.
Consider your role model: how would they spend their morning?
Spend 5 minutes or less thinking about somebody who you’d like to be more like. Somebody who already is where you want to be.
If they were in your shoes, what would they do this morning? Think through scenarios.
- What would they prioritize?
- What would occupy their mind?
- What would their first task for the day be? Be it pleasure or productive…
- What would they not spend time doing or thinking about.
Keep that idea in your mind…
Now that you know what you ought to be like the only thing left to do is go be it.
I stole this one from Marcus Aurelius’ night time routine. Always a great inspiration for me.
Oh, and please choose your role models wisely. Don’t look at a YouTuber morning routine and copy paste.
Do something that excites you IMMEDIATELY as you wake up EVERY day
Do you remember the feeling of getting up on Christmas day as a kid? Realizing you’re awake and instantly swinging your legs out of bed?
You can have that feeling every morning. The issue is we all know that there’s this big, nasty, day of work ahead of you most of the time. So what do we do? Trick our brain!!
Put that nasty workload behind a thinly veiled curtain of a nice activity so that your brain focuses on the immediate task!
Jokes aside… yeah that’s actually what we’re doing. From personal experience this is the most effective way to get past the biggest hurdle of being productive in the morning – the physically getting up part.
As long as your mind knows that there’s something exciting right outside of your bed you will automatically feel a desire to get out of bed. And that’s much easier (and pleasant) than using willpower to force yourself out from underneath the sheets.
Personal examples include…
- Playing an instrument.
- Exercise / cardio (runners high is real, I swear.)
- Opening packages – a great way to mix things up!
Action Item: Think about your last week and make a list of things you tend to think about doing or end up doing in your free time – if you can make it happen in 30 minutes or less then make it the first thing you do in the morning.
Caveat: IT CAN’T BE SOMETHING YOU CAN DO IN BED. Don’t turn this into an excuse to sit in bed and watch YouTube or read a book for another 30 minutes. Getting comfy is the last thing we want.
It’s important for you to get up and do something so you build momentum and avoid falling back asleep.
If this doesn’t work…
Make commitments early in the morning
If excitement does get you up hopefully necessity/fear does! Let’s leverage some negative forces for good.
If you have anything you can frontload your morning with that other people can hold you accountable to it’s a great way to guarantee you’ll be up and moving around early in the morning! Objects in motion stay in motion and all that.
Think of task you can do that people can hold you accountable to. Personal favorites include…
- Walk the dog
- Gym partner
- Business call
- Coffee with friends
This is to jumpstart the habit of getting up early. It is physically easier to go to bed early when you’re tired from getting up early.
It’s unrealistic to make early morning commitments all the time so try to use this either temporarily or as a way to mix up your routine. While not a permanent fix it’s like duct-tape in a toolbox – always useful!
Sunrise alarm > Traditional alarm
| Traditional alarm | Sunrise alarm |
| Terror inducing screeching (play your alarm noise right now, see how you feel) | Light! The anti-fear catch-all. |
| Rips you from your sweet, sweet dreams abruptly. | Activates your natural processes for waking up simulating the sun rising tricking your body into thinking the sun is coming up. |
| It’s on your phone – and we don’t want that near your bed. | Sits across the room in its own little morning routine spot. Maybe by a glass of water? Right next to your dream journal? Ideal. |
Need I say more? These alarms just make waking up feel better. They make you feel like you are waking up on a weekend at 10am and that morning light creeping through the window making your walls glow with that soft yellow shine – but it’s 6am on a Wednesday and you have sh*t to do. Here’s an affiliate link so I can make $ off your current bad habits – Sunrise Alarm
Get enough rest
This one should be obvious; you can’t get much done if your body wants to shut down.
Sleep enough to recover from the day.
Hydrate enough so that you’re body isn’t shutting down.
Go to bed earlier if you have to.
This isn’t a life coach section – just a quick reminder to get the basics down!