How I Win My Morning
Introduction
The author Tim Ferriss of 4-Hour Work Week says that if you win the morning, you win the day and I believe it. Our minds are the most active in the morning, mainly because we just rested the past few hours. I have researched different methods of morning routines from the successful of entrepreneurs to the productivity hackers and this is the one that works for me.
Make Bed
There was a video I watched multiple times by Admiral H. McRaven. If you never heard of him, I'd suggest you watch his speech address to the Graduates of University of Texas. There was no better way to say it so I am going to just show it to you here.
If you make your bed every morning you will have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride, and it will encourage you to do another task and another and another. By the end of the day, that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed. Making your bed will also reinforce the fact that little things in life matter. If you can't do the little things right, you will never do the big things right. - Admiral H McRaven.
What I truly love about this quote is the last line. "If you can't do the little things right, you will never do the big things right". I believe this plays a big part of success as well. It's not necessarily the overnight success that is important, but it is the years of working hard and achieving the little things that turn into that overnight success.
Making your bed is not necessarily have to be thorough. I simply put the blanket to cover my bed and smoothens any wrinkles on the blanket. Few seconds later, my bed is made. Not only that it gives you a satisfaction of completion in the morning, but also it is nice to go home after a long day to see a nice clean bed.
Brush Teeth
Yes, brushing your teeth is very important. But I like to challenge myself. I often try to brush my teeth using my non-dominant hand. The reason for this is that it is difficult in the beginning, but once you get the hang of it, you feel more ambidextrous. You should try it!
Journal
One of the biggest impact in my morning is my journal because it helps me set the pace for the day. Within my journal, there are several most important points I want to write down to get started on my day.
My daily routine checklist. This will include making my bed, hygienic activities, writing in my journal, and reading at least 15 minutes a day.
Daily goal, weekly goals, and MINS. The daily goals are for setting the pace for the day. Weekly goals are a constant reminder of why I am doing the weekly goals, and the MINS is to prioritize the tasks I need to do to fulfill those goals.
Brain Dump. This will include the thoughts in my head, the dreams I had, and other miscellaneous things that goes on in my head. Brain Dump are very helpful to declutter your brain.
Evening Review. It is essential to always review your day, analyze what went wrong, and how you can do better the following day.
Shower & Skin-Care
This is very important and one should do it everyday. Meanwhile, my skin might not be the best, but I am working on it!
Meditate
Not only journal helps me declutter my brain and staying focus throughout the day, but meditate helps me to reflect my thoughts and practice mindfulness. Meditation that focuses on breathing is very difficult when starting out because breathing is the most boring activity in the world, yet we must remain focus on it for couple of minutes. Distractions in our mind is congested, but we must control our brain to focus. By practicing this technique, I was able to become more mindful of the tasks on-hand rather than being distracted by my environment.
Reading
In the morning, our brain is the most active after resting for a long period of time. I read at least 15 minutes of book everyday because I believe the knowledge are valuable, especially personal development books. To see the list of the books I have read, please click on the page below.
Reviewing My To-Do-List
My morning routine takes about one hour until every tasks in completed and I am ready to conquer my day. First thing I do after completing the routine is reviewing the things I need to do for my day. To help me navigate my prioritization of tasks, I use Todoist application to know which projects I need to focus on and what important tasks I need to do.
Systems!
Before I get into the nitty-gritty of my morning routine, I would like to point out that I have systemize morning routine with apps such as Notion and Todoist. With Notion, I able able to simply click a button so that a checklist of my daily routines are created. Todoist is a to-do list application that is very powerful. They provide different properties of checklist and you can even create one without a due date, it'll just store in your inbox. Sometimes when I thought about an idea or a miscellaneous task, I can just write in in Todoist and I can review it later on. Oh, and did I say you can integrate both Notion and Todoist?
