How To Make The Best Morning Routine?
You might be confused because I’m going to talk about the morning routine. So, why do I have an image of the night? Well! There’s a very specific reason for that.
If you think a good morning routine begins in the morning. You’re mistaken. A good morning routine begins the night before. And that’s what this article is about.
Here are 7 things that you should do every night to make your mornings productive:
1. To-Do List
It was obvious, wasn’t it? But wait! I have a different approach to it. I will not only ask you to write down 4–5 tasks that you need to accomplish tomorrow. I will also ask you to write down a “How To Start” list.
Each task on your list can be broken down into a set of steps. For example, the task of hitting the gym begins with you dressing up for the gym, then putting on your shoes, then going out of the house, reaching the gym, and so on.
And I want you to write down only the first step of every task you need to do tomorrow. In the case of hitting the gym, it’s getting dressed up for the gym. In the case of meditation, it’s finding a calm and comfy place to meditate.
The goal of this exercise is to open your brain and give you actionable steps you need to take tomorrow to start the activity. Because just the activity list is vague in itself.
2. Prep your breakfast
You might think it’s natural for people to cook their breakfast in the morning. But for me. It’s the opposite. Recently I have fallen prey to a really great recipe that I make every night for the next morning.
And that recipe is overnight oats.
There are a bunch of tutorials on YouTube that you can watch and make overnight oats that would be a real treat for you when you wake up.
And by just incorporating this simple recipe into my night routine. My breakfast-making time has been reduced to the minimum. All I need to prepare is my protein shake and I’m ready to dig in.
This recipe saves time + saves energy + saves money + it’s tasty. What more do you need?
3. Clean Your Work Area
I won’t argue with you on this. But research shows that clutter impacts us in many ways. It affects our emotions, behaviors + relationships. It increases stress and anxiety. It even impacts how we sleep.
In simple words, your outer world represents your inner world. Fix your outer world and you’ll fix the inner too.
Clean your desk each night.
4. Fill up your water bottle
Do you know what is the first thing you should do when you wake up in the morning? No, it isn’t checking your notifications. It’s drinking at least a liter of water.
And that’s why before going to sleep, fill up your water bottle and keep it beside your bed.
It has multiple benefits like It wakes up your mind, hydrates your brain, puts you in a positive state of mind, etc. Did I miss something?
5. Journal
Journaling is an activity that I haven’t missed in the last 8 months. And it’s because every night before I go to sleep. I journal about how my day went. All the lessons I learned throughout the day.
All the small mistakes I committed. All the small moments that made me laugh and all the people that I’m grateful for.
It doesn’t have to be an eventful day for you to feel grateful. You can feel grateful for small events like sunset and eating your favorite ice cream.
Here are 3 simple journal prompts that you can use:
- How was my day today?
- How is my mental health?
- What was my favorite moment of today?
6. Grab a Book
Grab a book that you love and go back to your cave and dive into it to reach your daily learning goals.
Your daily learning goals can look something like this: Today I’m going to learn at least 3 concepts from this book.
Don’t set targets of pages, or reading time. Set target in concepts. And you can read more mindfully. Look for concepts, principles, and mental models as you read.
If you have got some time. Set a target of at least 10 concepts to learn as of today. But if you’re short of time. 3 also does wonders because it’s better than zero.
7. Go to bed early
Most of us have the goal of waking up early and doing activities like exercise, reading, or meditation but most of us fail because we have the wrong goal.
Our goal shouldn’t be to wake up early. Our goal should be to go to sleep early. Which most of us are terrible at.
We need at least 9 hours of sleep. Yes! Not 8. 9 hours. Why? Because it’s a multiple of 3. And we need to sleep for 3 hours to complete 1 REM cycle and in 9 hours we’ll complete 3 REM cycles.
And to achieve that goal we need to go to bed by at least 9 PM. But why 9 PM? Because you won’t sleep instantaneously. It will take you some time to sleep. At least 15–30 mins or maybe more.
Guess what your parents were right when they told us to go to sleep by 9 PM but we never listened to them. Shit! It hurts to accept the fact that our parents were right.
