Every individual is busy with many things in a day and sometimes we need to push ourselves to do more and more. But before we add stuff to our “to do” list and make a longer daily schedule, it is important for us to organize and utilize our body and mind to enable ourselves for highest performance.
I’ve been utilizing my energy and schedule with different tactics to have a productive day. Here are my 8 steps morning hacks which I would like to share with you. The morning is important as this affect your rest of your day significantly, So it’s a smart move to prepare it as better as you can.
1. Wake up early
Waking up early sometimes is not easy. Especially for people who have flexible working hours like me! Waking up early in the morning is a good practice to toughen your mental and let you start a productive day. This is also mean you need to sleep earlier too. I totally agree sometimes we need to awake until late night to finish our work and we cannot sleep early, however, This is not good practice in a long run. You can simply schedule your to-do list in earlier of the day like early morning rather than doing it at late night.
2. Do mindfulness
Mindfulness meditation is practiced sitting with eyes closed, cross-legged on a cushion, or on a chair, with the back straight. Attention is put on the movement of the abdomen when breathing in and out, or on the awareness of the breath as it goes in and out the nostrils.
I personally do this for few months every day and I can tell you, it really changes my mood for a whole day. Here is quick guide to starting your morning meditation:
Location
The first thing you need to find is a suitable location to start your meditation. The place is better to be calm and away from the heavy noise and also make you feel relax. Just make sure cut most distractions from your the place.
Posture
Find a comfortable position to sit. You can do it as you like as long as you feel comfortable. Here is the illustration of doing that:
Time
Make a time every day to practicing the meditation. Try to start it with a small amount of time such as 15 minutes a day and increase it when you are comfortable. In the morning when I wake up I usually do the 10-15 minutes practice. You can do it at night too or any time of the day you are flexible with. Remember, To master every skill you need to set aside some time and practice it regularly.
How to start
I using headspace application. It is available for both iOS and Android. Check this app and start your meditation practice easily. The sessions usually are 10 minutes and it provides educational videos and information for handling stress and other emotional challenges.
3. Have a good breakfast
I’m sure you read lots of articles about that and hear a lot from your mom too. But it’s always good to remind it. A good breakfast can be some bread, egg, jam or fruits, and a cup of tea or juice. Keep it as simple as possible.
4. Do a quick check what you need to do for the day
This can be done when having your breakfast or before/after that. Simply check your to-do list and get an overview of your checklist. This gives you a feeling of confidence to start your day off. You really don’t need to check your emails at that time. Because this part need to be fast. When you have a quick glance over your list, it’s always good to make it as a reminder on your phone or using other tools such as Trello to manage your tasks.
5. Read few pages of books or blogs
Always try to start your day with some readings. This is inspired you for the rest of the day and also you learn new things every single day. You can simply do this by reading your book when you sitting in Cab, Train or any other spare time you can find. If you are driving, the audiobook will do the work too. I usually have my book in my bag and read few pages when I taking a cab to my office and the same thing when I coming back too.
6. Fuel your creativity
It’s good to have new ideas and inspire people around yourself to make more interesting stuff. There is a different type of ways to fuel your creativity which I will share with you some of them here.
You can inspire from others people work which available on variety social media such as Ello, Pinterest. You can always find new ways to inspire yourself. The environment around yourself sometimes is a good place to start with, never think you already see it for thousands of times, most probably you didn’t have your full attention. Try to avoid get inspiration from one source every time. Like those designers open their Pinterest along with their photoshop. Every time, try different sources.
7. Have a cup of water instead of coffee
This is one of the common mistakes most professionals do in their morning routine. Try to start your day with Plain cold water or a cup of green tea. Not only does it undermine the caffeine’s effect, but it tends to lead people to build a tolerance for the drug, thereby diminishing its effect down the road.
A few years back I was drinking few cups of coffee every day from morning to night. After some time I understand even those days I’m not tired and I have enough rest the night before, I still feel exhausted during the day. So I tried to cut off my coffee eventually and replace it with plain water and juice. It really improves my performance during the day. Coffee is good and still I like to have it sometime. It’s good to have your coffee in the middle of the day or late afternoon to boost your energy for another few hours.
8. Hype yourself up with music
My last tip is listening to energetic songs. If you are a big fan of music just like me, try to choose a playlist that hypes you in the morning. This is subjective and everyone have different taste of songs. As a rule of a thumb, try to pick up songs which do not remind you emotional memories.
I hope you can use these tips in your daily schedule and increase your performance. If you have different routines and hacking your morning with a different set of tactics, share with me too, I will be more than happy to hearing that.
