There’s an old saying that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. While it is possible to dispute that statement, having a good morning routine is crucial to having a successful day. There are definitely ways to hit the ground running at work.
Here are three things you can do to help you get the most out of your morning and put you on a path to productivity:
1. A good morning starts the previous afternoon
Hopefully, you’re able to leave work behind in the evening in order to ensure that you have a chance to rest and recharge before coming back to work. If so, then before you stop work—whether you’re leaving a physical office or just logging off work from home—take a look at the next day’s calendar.
It’s really useful to know what big things are coming the next day. Perhaps you have a meeting with an important colleague, client, or customer. There might be a nagging problem you’ve been given to solve. You may have to complete a report or look through some crucial data.
When you remind yourself of these goals for the following day, your brain will naturally help you prepare for that work. Concepts related to those goals will become easier for you to access. You might notice things in the world relevant to that goal. You might even find yourself thinking about the problem a bit in unstructured time, like when you’re taking a walk or in the shower. None of these mental activities should deplete your strength for the following day, but they might just help you be ready for what lies ahead.
2. Do an email triage to preserve your focus
Morning work time is often really effective, focused work time. Your body and brain are rested. You’re not likely to be overly stressed about anything going on at work. Often, people do not like to schedule meetings first thing in the morning, and so you may find yourself with blocks of time for engaging in bigger projects. As an added bonus, there is some evidence that caffeine, from that morning boost of coffee, can enhance your ability to focus attention. Even if you generally think of yourself as a night owl, you are still likely to find morning time productive.
Yet, a lot of us start the workday by checking email—which rarely requires your best work self. To avoid wasting too much of your productive individual time on email, set a timer when you log on for 15 or 20 minutes. Use that time to triage the email that came in overnight and to answer only those emails that require an immediate response. After that, close your email and spend some time on something that requires real concentration.
3. Find an early win
The first thing you do in the morning can set the tone for the rest of the day. When you’re feeling good about your life and work, you can look at work problems as more solvable than if you were feeling bad about things. So, there is value in trying to bias yourself toward feeling good.
A great way to make that happen is to start the day by completing a task successfully. Organize your to-do list so that you can easily find something you can do in 10 or 15 minutes. Finishing that task and crossing it off your list sets you up to feel a sense of self-efficacy, meaning that it reinforces the sense that you can get things done. And that can make the next, and more complex, things on your list feel totally doable.
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