7 Realistic Ways To Have A More Productive Morning

Raise your hand if your New Year’s resolution was to get more out of your mornings… that’s what I thought.

Waking up is hard, but when you truly habitualize a productive morning routine, you’ll set a positive tone for the rest of the day.

Here are 7 realistic ways to get the most out of your mornings:

1. Read—not watch—before bed.

It starts the night before… surprise, surprise.

Studies have shown that reading before bed can reduce stress, increase retention, kickstart creativity, and much more. Whether it’s a newspaper, a comic book, a novel, or an article that you saved earlier in the day, try to read something before bed.

Hot Tip: I recently read a great article on Shane Parrish’s Farnam Street blog (one of my favorite sources of inspiration) in which Shane shares that his trick to reading on a consistent basis without fatigue or failure is to give himself a reasonable goal of 25 pages per day. I’d challenge you to do the same.

Just Twenty-Five Pages a Day*I love bookshelves. I love the physical act of having the books up there on the shelves to be looked at, admired…*fs.blog

2. Charge your phone on the other side of the room.

You won’t have a morning if you can’t get out of bed, so this one is crucial. If you’re anything like me, you love your bed and who can blame you? It’s probably still dark outside, the sheets and covers are wrapped around you just right. But you must fight back!

A simple way is to physically force yourself to get out of bed. That’s why charging your phone across the room with an alarm on will get you up and out of that cozy cocoon you love so much.

3. Designate a morning spot.

Find the comfiest chair or nook in your home, with ample lighting, and that’s it—you’ve found your morning spot. This will be where you read, write, meditate. It’s important to designate this spot because it builds a reinforcing habit that will boost your productivity when you’re in it in the morning.

For me, every morning, I sit in the same swivel chair, facing the same direction.

4. Dress to impress… yourself.

A key part of a productive morning is feeling like your day has already begun. An easy way to do that is to wear what makes you feel successful and productive, so get out of those PJs, put on your clothes (+ shoes), and you’re on your way.

This is another micro-hack where you’re training your brain to associate feeling fully clothed with a go-getter attitude.

5. Light the way.

Morning lighting is another underrated tool that you have in your productive morning tool kit. The ambiance of your dwelling has implications for how productive you feel.

Hot Tip: I use the Phillips Hue smart lights to gradually turn themselves on from around 6:00 am to full brightness by 6:15 am. When my alarm goes off at 6:00 am, the lights begin to slowly ease my eyes into the day. It’s a much less stark and abrupt way to begin your visual day than the usual bathroom blinding.

6. Meditate for five minutes.

Chances are that unless you live miles from other people, you can open your window and hear the rest of the world beginning to wake up.

Here in New York, we have no shortage of early-morning jackhammers, honk wars, or impressively loud conversationalists (ok, screamers) on the sidewalks below.

In your morning spot, practice five minutes of mindful meditation—the key here is to close your eyes and willingly embrace the sounds, smells, sensations that surround you without dwelling on any which one. As the popular phone app Headspace puts it: pretend these senses and the thoughts in your head are like traffic on a highway and you’re simply observing them pass by.

7. Practice some form of creative expression.

Unless you feel absolutely and completely fulfilled creatively by the work you do *at work, *chances are you have another creative itch to scratch in your spare time.

Mornings are a perfect time to exercise that creative muscle. Pick your poison and spend a few minutes focusing on not focusing at all. Sketch doodles. Write extemporaneously. Sing softly.

I call this constructive creativity—it may not seem like it has a purpose, but the underlying expansion of your brain’s capacity to be inspired is more than worth it.

Bonus: Complete your first goal of every day.

I read another great article, the author’s name is escaping me at the moment, which said that you should always try to complete your first goal of the day.

For many of us, that’s simply getting out of bed.

I hope these steps help you achieve more morning productivity!

See you tomorrow.