6 Ways to Be Productive in the Morning
Sometimes being productive is tough but it often takes just a few simple things to boost our motivation, get us feeling energized, and back on track. Here are 6 ways to be productive in the morning.
I've been working from home for a while now. And while I love it, it requires a hefty dose of being able to motivate yourself on the daily. Without that, you can't get very far.
And a little fun fact for you: I haven’t always been a super productive type of person. Being lazy is still something I deal with at times (and hey, it's fine by me to be lazy sometimes, ok?) but I've adopted several habits over the past couple of years that really help to squash it when laziness just isn't an option.
So if you're looking for ways to boost your productivity and motivation levels, then these tips are for you! These are things I do personally that have made a big difference in my ability to get stuff done and be productive when I wake up in the morning.
1. Know Your Tasks
Know the tasks that need to get done, and have them written down in an agenda or a digital notebook (I use Evernote).
You can list out your tasks the night before or in the morning, but I often find that having an already-thought out list of tasks the night before to consult in the morning helps take the guess work out of what I'm supposed to be doing once I get up. The key here though is to keep it streamlined. Just the most pressing tasks you want to complete for the next day and in the order of importance. This might be only 3 or 5 things.
You can also have weekly or monthly task lists that are more comprehensive, but to help you be productive and not overwhelmed, you need to only focus on a couple of achievable tasks so that you can feel accomplished and gain momentum.
2. Keep Your Space Tidy
Having a tidy space to wake up to is important so that when you get up you don't feel overwhelmed, uninspired or unmotiviated because of needing to clean a bunch of stuff up before you can even begin your day.
Whether that's your bedroom, office, desk or kitchen for prepping food, making breakfast, packing a lunch, or working from home, make sure the different spaces in your home are organized and ready for you! I'm not pristinely tidy 100% of the time, but this often just means a quick tidy-up the night before.
3. Get a Good Night's Sleep
Make sure you're getting your 8 (ish) hours of sleep. Having a consistent sleep schedule is key. This means waking up and going to bed at roughly same time each day to help you have much better energy in the morning, mental clarity, mental stamina, and and enhanced ability to focus. So do your best to make sleep a priority!
4. Get Ready for the Day
Geting ready for the day by doing the things you need to do to help you feel good accomplishes one important thing: it helps you look and feel the part of being productive. Pretty simple, right?
Carry out your favourite healthy morning habits, make breakfast, and even if you're working from home, do things you'd otherwise do if you were in fact leaving the house: have a shower, get dressed, and brush your teeth! Even though I work from home, I almost never stay in my pyjamas or else, quite frankly, I feel a lot more lazy.
5. Don't Delay
Get started on tasks as soon as you can. Of course, you don't want to start on your work immediately when you wake up as you want to enjoy your routine like I mentioned above, but you also don't want to delay your tasks. Delaying makes you much more likely to laze around, scroll through social media, and put things off for another day.
We all know what it's like to feel like we have plenty of time in the morning only to realize hours have gone by and we've procrastinated the day away. So don't delay, my friends, and you'll notice momentum begin to build.