Morning Routine

You don’t need an elaborate morning routine. Online coaches and influencers describe theirs ad nauseam. If you have the time, by all means spend your morning with strength training, affirmations, a home-cooked breakfast in accordance with your chosen macros, a walk outside, meditation, tai chi, and a success visualization. But most of us have a job to do. We get up, shower, brush our teeth, have coffee, and head to the office.

But as so often, there is a grain of truth behind the hype. It is true that your brain is reset when you wake up. But as soon as you open your email, messages, or social media, other people’s concerns and agendas take over your life.

The one thing that matters most in your mornings is to set your intention for the day. Before you reach for your phone, identify one thing you want to achieve this day. Just one. Your brain is not good at holding dozens of tasks simultaneously. It gets confused, and you start task swapping and spinning your wheels. Set your sights on one task in the morning. You’ll find your brain will keep reminding you, and that one task does get completed.

Reboot

There is nothing you cannot start today. Every day is a new beginning, no matter what happened yesterday. If life got in the way, or simple procrastinating kept you from doing what you had planned, never mind. You can do it today.

The reason we always start IT troubleshooting with “Did you try a reboot?” is that it works. Starting over gets rid of superfluous zombie processes and reclaims memory. It works for your brain just as it does for your computer. But as your day wears on, you’ll find you work slower and slower. Email and other messages add background processes and use up memory, leaving you with little productivity left by the end of the workday.

That’s why you need to start with what’s important. Identify one task that has to happen today, and don’t open email, messaging apps, or social media until that is done.