{"id":362,"date":"2007-03-11T13:38:34","date_gmt":"2007-03-11T18:38:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/devinreams.com\/2007\/03\/11\/morning-routines-rock\/"},"modified":"2011-02-24T14:38:16","modified_gmt":"2011-02-24T21:38:16","slug":"morning-routines-rock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/?p=362","title":{"rendered":"Morning routines rock"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Not a morning person? That&#8217;s fine, most people aren&#8217;t. Though, have you ever noticed that some of the most productive (and successful) people you know are early-risers? Sure, there are exceptions to this rule but in general, those that get up early use those first few hours to get their day started the right way.<\/p>\n<p>So what&#8217;s the point of getting up early? It&#8217;s simple, really&#8230;<\/p>\n<h2>Mornings are distraction-less<\/h2>\n<p>I remember an article in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fastcompany.com\/\">FastCompany<\/a> (can&#8217;t find it, though) that outlined a number of executives&#8217; daily routines. Each of them were waking up early and taking care of things before the day got hectic:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Working out<\/li>\n<li>Eating a healthy breakfast<\/li>\n<li>Catching up on email<\/li>\n<li>Reading and watching the morning news<\/li>\n<li>etc&#8230;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>By waking up at 6, 5, or even 4am they were able to hit the day running without interruption. That&#8217;s the key to productivity: removing the distractions. Waking up early does that for you.<\/p>\n<h2>You get a head-start on everyone<\/h2>\n<p>An obvious benefit to getting up early is the fact you&#8217;re up and starting your day before everyone else. By the time they get into the office they&#8217;ve already got your email in their inbox, you&#8217;ve already had your cup of coffee and are ready start producing results.<\/p>\n<h2>You can&#8217;t put things off<\/h2>\n<p>Waking up early means you&#8217;ve accomplished things that may have been scheduled later. For example, I used to budget time in the evening to go to the gym. I realized that things always come up in the evening. It&#8217;s too easy to put things off later in the day. If you do them in the morning before distractions and interruptions can occur, you&#8217;re bound to always get them done.<\/p>\n<h2>My experiences<\/h2>\n<p>Now that you understand some of the benefits of getting up early I&#8217;ll describe my routine:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>6:00am &#8211; Wake up and go to gym<\/li>\n<li>7:00am &#8211; Return home, make breakfast, read WSJ<\/li>\n<li>7:45am &#8211; Shower, get dressed<\/li>\n<li>8:00am &#8211; Either go to work (2 days) or read before school (2 days)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It&#8217;s a simple schedule but it&#8217;s dramatically changed things for me. First, I&#8217;m actually going to the gym as often as I&#8217;d like to. As soon as I wake up I put on my shoes and head out the door. No excuses, no delay, it just happens. After working out, a few minutes in the jacuzzi mean I can collect my thoughts before the day starts. I already have a mental plan by 7am.<\/p>\n<p>Second, I eat a good breakfast every morning. I rarely ate breakfast in the past but now it&#8217;s a simple gesture every morning. While I&#8217;m eating I also read the paper and enjoy some silence as the sun comes up.<\/p>\n<p>Third, I&#8217;m not rushed in the morning. I always have time to collect my thoughts. I never forget to bring anything to school. I never go out the door without some snack packed for the day. By waking up early and having more time I essentially slow down my morning.<\/p>\n<h2>What do you do?<\/h2>\n<p>If I haven&#8217;t convinced you yet, try getting up early every day for a week. As it becomes a habit it becomes easier. It&#8217;s obviously a great way to be productive and start your day right. But, I&#8217;m curious, what&#8217;s your morning routine?<\/p>\n<p><font size=-2><em>Before I started writing this I hadn&#8217;t even realized David Seah had begun <a href=\"http:\/\/davidseah.com\/archives\/2007\/03\/02\/checkpoint-two-weeks-of-waking-up-early\/\">a similar experiment<\/a>. Check out <a href=\"http:\/\/davidseah.com\/\">David&#8217;s (excellent) productivity blog<\/a> for a detailed look at his morning routine.<\/em><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Not a morning person? That&#8217;s fine, most people aren&#8217;t. Though, have you ever noticed that some of the most productive (and successful) people you know are early-risers? Sure, there are exceptions to this rule but in general, those that get up early use those first few hours to get their day started the right way. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[3],"class_list":["post-362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-internet","tag-old"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=362"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1720,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362\/revisions\/1720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}