You stumble lazily over to the coffee pot but blah, there’s nothing on. Things don’t seem to be getting off on the right foot; it’s not that you don’t have anything to do; it’s just that there are those days that you can’t get into the swing of things. We’re going to stop that; from here on out, you’re going to learn how to wake up productive and be ready to rock.
Kickin’ Ass Lead Up Time Yo!
Let’s start backwards; let’s start with the activities you should be doing before going to sleep each night – this way you’ll be ready and charged to tackle the things you want to get done first thing in the morning.
Get a shower – You probably take showers in the morning but try, at least once, flipping it around to taking them at night. Your body will naturally begin to wind down when you go from a hot environment to cold; stepping out of the shower into an air conditioned room relaxes you so you’re more readily to sleep. Additionally, if think about it, if you go straight to bed after a long day’s work, you’re going to sleep with all the dirt and grime that’s going to be mashed into your pillow and blankets – why wake up feeling really icky, ya know?
Plan your daily activities – As one of your last activities for the day, before heading off to bed, write down what you want to accomplish during the day. Try to keep your to-do list no longer than five or so activities else you’ll end up overloading yourself and get nothing done. Better yet, choose just one item that will provide maximum value for your projects and set that as the only focus you plan to work on during the day.
Go with the flow – Many people will tell you what not to do before going to sleep but throw all that out; just go with what your body naturally tells you. For example, and this will sound weird, I generally drink a cup of coffee before going to sleep because it seems to make me sleep heavier so I wake up feeling refreshed – you won’t find that as a common suggestion and it’s probably just me. Don’t make your sleep schedule and activities as part of your to-do list; let it come naturally.
Once you’re feeling refreshed for bed and you’ve got the major items that you want to work on for the day written down; tuck yourself in and set those alarms – tomorrow is going to be a big day.
Starting the Day off Right
Good morning sunshine! You’re up, you’re feeling refreshed, you’re ready to rock; now comes the hard part: actually getting into the swing of things.
Even though you may have gotten a great night’s sleep and your to-do list in hand, it can still be a real slog if you’re not “feeling it” when you wake up. There are those days that no matter what you feel like working on and no matter how much energy you have, you can’t seem to get down to it. Here are some of my suggestions for starting the day off productive:
Take 15 minutes for yourself – Most of us generally hop right up, quickly scramble to throw things together and get out the door; this puts us right into stress and confusion. First thing, when you wake up, should be to take a few minutes to reflect and do nothing. Use this time to clear your head, watch the world go by and think about what you’d like to get done today. I don’t want to say something cheesy like “tell yourself you’re awesome!” but just remind yourself that you’re about to kick some ass and things are going to be good.
Jump right into it – Grab your to-do list and look at the first item; then start doing it. Don’t check email, Facebook, text messages or your RSS reader – take that first spark of energy to dive right into your projects. I’ve found that if you give yourself the little nudge to get started that you’ll always start to feel the groove and start banging out your tasks (hell, I woke up and immediately started writing this). Believe me, once you’ve knocked down one of your items first thing in the morning, you’re going to feel a nice rush of inspiration and productivity; you’ll be ready to tackle the rest of the day.
Don’t worry so much – If there’s one thing that I’ve learned since starting all of my projects is that feeling like you should always be working on something or that “you’re not getting enough done” can be the death knell to even start the day. Learn to let go; learn to say “it’s okay to stop here”. There will always be another day to get the job done and, quite frankly, it may be better to stretch a few tasks out if it means that you’re not stressing yourself into paralysis.
It’s not rocket science; it really all comes down to clearing your head and getting down to work. It’s infinitely better to just get the job done early in the morning when you’re energy is up there than to push it off til the afternoon when you’re starting to feel the burn of the day.
Start that Riot!
It probably wasn’t necessary that this post is going a bit over 1,000 words but ya know, sometimes we just need to be reminded of the simple things to spark that ounce of creativity and inspiration. Take these items and play with them until you’ve found your own fit; some may work, some won’t – like I said, go with the flow. Find what makes you get going in the morning, learn why it works and just make it a habit to repeat it every morning – simple, right?
Start the rioooooot!
sound advice. For me the 15 minutes or so, to myself, not doing anything, as soon as I wake up is key – sets me up just right for the day. I also like the don’t worry so much and go with the flow – that can hard sometimes – but when you’re in the zone it’s definitely the best way to be – work in progress I guess…
not sure about the coffee just before sleep – doesn’t work for me – but I once shared a place with a guy who used to do the same thing – didn’t affect him at all – each to there own I suppose – shows that life is not ‘one rule fits all’!!
Thanks for posting.
Hey Steve,
If you want a perfect example of how effective that 15 minutes can be; just today I woke up and had to run out the door – the entire day I’ve been sloggin’ ass because I wasn’t able to get my head in the game in the early hours; I’m just now getting out of the fog but the day is almost over
Glad to hear I’m not the odd one about the coffee haha; thought that would be one of those ‘uhhhh’ moments for people reading – it’s true though, every body is different, just one of those things that you find out and if it works, go with it ya know.
Murray,
I use to be one of those sleep in and rush out the door people. But I have changed my ways. I love that 15 minutes of quiet time with a good cup of coffee.
I also make a list the night before. It may sound weird but I wake up with ideas that make those things on the list work.
Now I have to admit that I do not jump in and attack the list. I look at my emails etc. I will have to give that one a try. I could always be more productive with my own products.
Thanks
That’s great to hear that you’re already right into this routine Sheila; doubly so about being able to do your problem solving while sleeping – I know exactly what you mean. If you’re thinking about the next day’s project before you’re off for the night, you always wake up and when it pops into your head, you get super creative and discover those best approaches to get things done. The 15 minutes of just chilling pulls you back to earth because, I’m sure you’ve noticed, when you jump right into traffic, you’re tired and a bit cranky and when you’re stuck behind someone, it messes up your entire day, ya know?
Try the email for a week and be sure to let me know Sheila; even if you don’t complete the full item in the morning, pushing your email off by an hour or so can have a profound effect – would love to hear your results if you do
This is great advice Murray. I especially like the point about making a list for the next day before going to bed. That alone will save me from fumbling around trying to figure out what I need to be working on. I’ve done that inconsistently in the day job, and it does help. I’ll definitely work on that in other areas of my life as well.
Thanks for the reminder, and have a great weekend!
Cindy Bidar´s last [type] ..Perception is Everything
When you think about when you write to-do lists in the morning, you always end up adding on those items that don’t really matter to the point that you’re just overloading yourself, ya know? I think, at least from my experience, since you think about your to-do before you go to bed, you’re only really looking at the big things that you want to get done vs. just doing the busy stuff to fill the time – even though we may not realize that we’re filling up our day with busy work, we still do it. Going into it with a clear mind and goal set for the day can be amazing especially if you have the free time to do it (which you generally will without the busy-busy).
I wrote about some of strategies in my post titled “How to Get Your Groove On,” but I think it’s good to experiment a bit with your morning and night routines to discover what works best for you. Maybe you need 30 minutes to yourself in the morning, or an hour, or maybe just five minutes. As Jason Fried talks about, it really comes down to a place, a time, and movement in order to get going with your work.
I find that if I’m working on something and then I hit a rut or don’t feel the motivation to finish it, I’ll set it aside and work on something else. I want to be 100% focused on what I’m doing and not put in a half-ass effort just for the sake of finishing it. With some things, you may need to just get it out there, but with other things, it’s okay to take a little longer than you would like in completing it.
Oh I know exactly what you mean James – last weekend, I wrote about 3 pages of this ebook that I’ve been working on – problem is that I was really tired and wasn’t really feeling it – even though I completed a lot of the work I wanted to get done for the day; it was all crap. I went back and read it the next day and it was clear that I lacked a lot of inspiration; I was getting it done just for the sake of getting it done.
One of the biggest things that gets me in trouble at work is that I often overlseep and get in about 5 – 15 mins late (luckily I work at a small biz so they don’t mind much) but that’s because my “prime” time to work is between 1-3am; I feel on fire at that point, everything flows out. So yeah, know whatchya mean by getting the “groove on”.
James, if you want to, link it up here in the comments because I think it’s definitely worthwhile for others to read
It’s funny how people seem to be most productive between 5-7am or 12-3am. No one is ever productive at like 2pm!
You’re quite lucky that you work for a firm that is so lenient with you being late at times. It was a major problem with the hotels I managed and the city as a whole. People would show up after 30 minutes and think nothing of it. Difficult to fire people because of it because there was no one left to hire in the city, too.
Here’s the link for anyone that’s interested: http://www.foursides.ca/2011/01/how-to-get-in-the-groove-work-jason-fried-and-timothy-ferriss/
I’m planning on doing a series of quick posts about the idea in the near future, too.
That ‘groove’ time is all kinds of magical, James.
Whenever I track my time between 1 – 3am, I always notice that I get a huuuuge chunk of my work done in comparision throughout the normal work day. If you think about it, it all makes perfect sense because when you’re working on your “off times”, you’re getting distracted, you have to pull yourself into your work, you have to get into the groove of things and there’s just so much going on that you can’t stay focused.
On the other end of things, when you’re working on your groove – especially at night, at least for me – there’s less people sending me messages, calling me, less overall activity that’s disrupting my work flow. It’s that perfect set of hours where things just seem to flow; I get my second wind during the day and things get hammered out.
If only work, as a whole, always worked like this – let people work when they are most proficient – things would really get done.
I could see, though, in a hotel environment where being late wouldn’t work since it’s a service industry – well, that applies to the service industry as a whole; if you’re not there than people aren’t being taken care of. That’s one of the reasons why I got out of it because it was all take and no give; no matter how hard I worked, it was basically – okay, you did your job, here’s your shitty pay. It also applied when people were mad at you for no reason.
When you do something bad on a project you’re in control of – you deserve the blame. But when you’re being yelled at by an irrate customer because of the rules set by a company, that’s not fair.
For example, I worked the booth at a movie theater. People would be fuming at me because I wouldn’t let them take in outside food (someone tried to bring in a pizza!); I told him it wasn’t my rules – it was the companies. But he just stood there for like 5 minutes berating me, personally.
Not sure how this all got to this topic haha – but I think what I’m trying to say is that when you have more responsibility over your work and when you get to choose when to do it – you can really make things happen vs. just sticking to a script.
Hi Murray
I reckon you could get everything done and some just cos you are you
Your work ethic continues to amaze and inspire me. I know I am reapeating myself but just knowing that you have so many projects on the go, just had to say it 
Will have to try not checking emails, comments & replying and Twitter before I get down to writing! I usually do it the other way round. Can get to be time consuming so maybe having a change will help.
For me, I don’t like keeping people waiting if they have commented on one of my posts. Just having time zone differences means they may have already waited several hours, that’s why I like to reply ASAP! I do notice on other blogs, the blog owners don’t do this and sometimes comments aren’t answered for days. That’s just not me. But maybe waiting a couple more hours won’t hurt.
I could try one or two tasks on my “to-do” list and then go back to my routine. Will have to see how it goes. As you appear to achieve heaps more than me in a day; will give it a go. Thanks for the suggestions here Murray. Enjoyed the post.
Patricia Perth Australia
Patricia@lavender´s last [type] ..Collaboration- the new buzz word
Hey Patricia
There’s not harm in waiting a bit longer to respond to comments; as long as you get around to them in a timely manner – I wouldn’t say pushing comments off by a week is good but a day or two is perfectly okay if your commentors know that you’re working on some heavy projects; it all depends on your niche I suppose. Hell, I think this is about 24 hours since you left a comment and although I meant to respond to it right away I just now got to it
One thing that should be considered though in terms of commenting (me and Dino talked about this) is that it’s probably a good thing that you catch at least a few right away because it fluffs the numbers a bit – it’s something people don’t really tell ya but it’s very effective – when people come to a site and see maybe 5 comments, they maaaay get involved but they see that there’s not a lot going on – buuut, if you add in your own comments and they now see 10, well, they’re more likely to join because there’s a lot of activity.
Taking time lets you craft a better response though; sometimes a few hours time can mean that you pick up on a few extra things which could set your response to even higher value; ya know?
As for to-do’s, yeah, try to set things back just a bit because there’s always time to get the little things done but you need large chunks of time to accomplish those big items. I tend to respond to comments at the end of the night because my core time (between 6 and 11) need to be devoted to the big action things like creating new content and working on projects. Try it out for a bit and let me know how your routine goes; if it isn’t working for your style than don’t fret, you can always go back to the old.
For me, I also try to keep a habit of waking up and starting my day early. Don’t hit the snooze as I find that tends to slow me down. Then I take a little time to do something quite like reading the paper and drinking my morning coffee. Eating breakfast is important to keeping my energy up through the rest of the day.
After that routine, I’m pretty much ready to start my day.
Richard´s last [type] ..Riches Corner Report- January 2011
Ooooh, yeah I never really understood the snooze button because you always hit it like 15x by the time you jump up but in reality, you never really get any sleep because you don’t fall back into REM sleep – those 5 minutes aren’t enough time so you might as well wake up and let your body do so as well; you’ve got a great routine down, just remember to avoid negative news in the newspaper because that can be one of those little things that subconciously irks you throughout the day – reading “war!” in the paper just when starting out sets a bad tone for the rest of the day ya know (it’s good to keep up on these things but too much negatively and you’re day starts to follow suit).
Great tips here Murray. In Thailand they tend to take showers in the morning and night as it gets pretty hot, so I’ve started doing this too. Taking a shower does help to relax the brain (scientifically proven I believe) hence why so many people have ideas there.
I’ve also founded very unproductive to check email and RSS first thing as it gets you into a responsive mindset rather than a creative one.
Robert Dempsey´s last [type] ..Is Your Website Worth 5
Perfect words Robert – responsive vs. creative. When you jump up, your mind is still running around from your sleep phase so it’s kind of day dreaming but yeah, if you jump right into your email or RSS, you’re becoming receptive and, as we know, that starts to influence your creativity during the day – just think of all those great artists that literally lock themselves away or go into the mountain side while working – they come back with amazing pieces because the outside world doesn’t influence them when their in their creativity modes.
The shower thing makes sense; I could imagine Thailand getting very hot being so close to the sea; Florida’s a lot like that, you take a shower in the morning and you’ll start sweating by the time you get into your car haha.
Great post, Murray – I like these motivational articles. I especially like your tip to just “jump right into it,” because I believe that’s my problem a lot of the time. It’s SO tempting to wake up and want to check up on your Facebook activity, Twitter messages, and all the blogs in your RSS reader (and I subscribe to an insane number of blogs). Just being able to get up and get right to work probably makes a huge difference in the day.
Eric | My 4-Hour Workweek´s last [type] ..Online Passive Income & Blog Update January 11
One of those “hitting the wall” points for me, Eric, was when I came back from my vacation a few months ago; I was gone a week but my RSS was just PACKED with blog posts – it literally took me a day to catch up – just imagine, even though you don’t think you’re spending too much time on these blogs at a time, they really start to add up – you may be down by 10 or so productive hours at the end of the week just playing catch up with other blogs.
Low information diet is the way to go overall along with ‘just in time’ learning – if you don’t really need the tip, no biggie, ya know? You can always learn it when you actually do.
Cutting out a lot of little things takes a load off your mind and frees up your time to dive right in (ha!) into those big projects; I know you’ve got quite a few – hope you can apply these
Murray!
Flipping things around sounds like a plan to me. You know I don’t usually follow the same routine everyday. I like to mix things up so that it don’t get monotonous; I guess it is just me (O:
Great advice here buddy!
Adam Paudyal´s last [type] ..Promote Yourself- Your Site Or Your Business For Free- A Page Dedicated Just For You!
I know what you mean man; you don’t really want to turn this into a job but you do, in many ways, need to set a core block of time to getting the “job” done with your blog and projects, ya know? It’s really like anything – the more time you put into it, the more you can master it and the more you’ll benefit in the end. It doesn’t have to be your entire afternoon but putting in that hour or two, as a routine, can have a phenomenal effect on your productivity because your mind is always ready to go go go right at that time, every day.
I love that you included that ATR song at the end! Hilarious and perfect for this post. Plus, I have not heard it in some time.
In the morning, I tend to not hurry. That helps me to not worry so much (though I still do about some things).
Like most people, there is so much that I need to do in the morning that I really could go insane if I did not adopt a “whatever happens happens” approach. Having said that, I have never been late for work.
Also, once I am ready, it is really important for me to just get right to work. If I take time to read emails or listen to the radio or some other thing that does not get work done for me, it never works out.
Really, I am so busy outside of my online ventures that I have no hope of accomplishing much of anything if I don’t stay focused.
Good ideas here Murray. Especially the avoidance of worry. Really, that new niche site can wait another day. Just don’t make it two days.
BTW – I actually know a couple of people who drink coffee before bed. It has always seemed like an odd practice to me, but whatever works.
Have a good day!
mark´s last [type] ..Finding Niche Ideas and Why I Love Naughty Emails
Hey Mark – great to have you here and thanks for your input (that’s awesome that you know ATR haha)
What was it again? “Haste makes waste”. Trying to rush eeeeverything makes for sloppy work – hittin ya with another analogy “measure twice, cut once” – best to just take your time and get it done right than to get in a bad mood cause you have to go back and do it all over again; that gets annoying really quick and by the time you’re any bit deep into the second time, you don’t even want to do it anymore.
Focus is especially important for people like us that are trying to essentially control two lives at once; of course, if we can blend them together that’ll be great but in the meantime, we gotta hustle and grind to get the job done – that doesn’t mean that you’re playing games the entire day haha. Good to hear you’ve got the focus Mark
Murray, every time I come to comment here I read “Leave a Kick-Ass-Reply” and think, OK. I’ll give it a go.
I do agree with your advice to plan your day the night before. Sometime I “set intentions” for the day which seems to be even more effective than having lists! Today, however, I am trying something different.
I was up early, published my blog post and all that stuff and found myself sitting at my computer by eight o’clock. This may sound crazy, but you know how the distractions can plague you all day, especially online, well I decided to get them out of my system right away, for about thirty minutes, as a sort of reward for getting to work so early (for me!). The jury is still out as to whether or not it works. I imagine some days, I’ll just forgo the distractions completely (you don’t want it so much when you know you can have it!) and just start the riot right away!
Right on Lori!
Ya know, you may enjoy this app called Focus Booster – it sets 25 min. intervals for you to work and 5 minute cool downs. I’ve been using it lately for my writing and I’m finding that I’m able to get a lot more done because I’m essentially racing with the clock; since I’m so focused on getting things done in that short amount of time, by the time I’m done, I realized that I’ve done nearly 2 hours of work in that one. Repeat that process and bam, you’ve got everything done in half the time – yeah, it was harder work but now you’ve got double the time to relax and hang with friends and family for the rest of the day
I like the idea of “intentions” because its more accurately describes what we’re trying to do but, just as advice, try to set times on your intentions as well – an intention without a time frame is just wishful thinking, ya know? If you go into your intentions with the intent (no pun intended ha) to complete it by, say, 5pm that day; you’re certainly going to get the job done
Rewarding yourself, as you’ve found, can be great – it goes even better when you reward yourself with something productive like taking 5 minutes to read a blog post (like this one!) that can help improve your work overall – this is, in the long run, a better approach because you get your work done and since your reward is learning, you’re not wasting time as you would with just browsing through blogs for hours – you have a set item that you want to read and can apply once you get back to it. That’s smart.
Thanks for the kick-ass reply Lori – keep at it!
Thanks for the tips but it didn’t work and I’m still draggin ass this Monday morning here….and it’s almost 2:30pm ET now.
ha ha!
Rob McCance´s last [type] ..Atlanta Property Taxes
Awww
Well, keep at it Rob because it’s certainly not an instant fix haha – gotta get into the routine of doing this on a daily basis until it just clicks and becomes second nature; plus, if you’re ever feeling like you’re not into it – put on that speed core (ATR!) and start kickin’ all kinds of ass first thing in the morning haha.
Hi Murray!
Having an evening and morning ritual is essential. I would be lost without those
For example, I pack my stuff every evening for the next day, prepare my to-do list and take a shower (yes, I like to do that in the evening).
When I wake up (05:30 AM), I dress up, eat breakfast, work on my online stuff for 45 minutes, then hit the gym or swimming hall and after that to the office.
It’s these same rituals every day, but they work and I get stuff done – even if I have a 9-5 job or other hobbies that I’m into.
Thanks for the tips they really helped. That time I spent to myself before getting started got the wheels in my head turning. Then I dove right in an got a ton of work done so it worked for me. One of my problems is getting off task!