Have you ever started your morning feeling completely underprepared and overwhelmed? I’m sure we’ve all felt that way at one time or another. In my personal experience, this feeling has always been the result of time management issues. When I don’t manage my time appropriately, I will fall behind and become stressed and overwhelmed about what’s on my plate. Though we can often have a lot of our plate, it can easily be managed without stress. It’s only when we don’t manage our time well, that we feel we are “too busy” to get everything done. Here are a few tips to help you dig yourself out of the hole of being “too busy” by developing a good morning routine.
Plan Your Day the Night Before
There is nothing worse than being stressed and rushed in the morning. That is undeniably the best way to to ruin a positive perspective about your day. Help yourself in the morning but removing some of the obstacles that get in the way of a healthy and relaxed morning routine.
- Apparel – Remove the stress of deciding on your outfit in the morning by laying it out for yourself before you go to bed.
- Review Your Task List – Don’t let your day catch you by surprise. Take a few minutes and review tomorrow’s calendar and task list. This will allow you to mentally prepare for what’s ahead and it will give you peace to know that nothing is going to sneak up on you.
- Identify the Must-Do’s – We all have a lot of things that need to get done but we can’t always accomplish EVERYTHING on our list every day. Clear that burden from your mind and identify what you must do tomorrow. This will allow you to stay on track with important deadlines, help you to feel more productive and remove the feelings of being “too busy.”
Develop a Healthy Morning Routine
Now that you’ve removed stress and given yourself more margin in the morning by doing some pre-day planning, its now time to maximize the time that you’ve created at the start of your day. The morning is an excellent time to prepare yourself mentally, physically and spiritually for what the day has in store. No day is an easy day so you need to be ready to handle it with your head screwed on straight.
- Steward Your Inner Being – Your morning routine will set the tone for the rest of your day. Use it to feed your mind and your heart. Center yourself around the things that lift you up and give you a healthy perspective about life and who you are. For me, that means reading my Bible and spending time in prayer before I do anything else. This is also a great time to absorb quality and enriching content from a good podcast, blog or book while you sip on your favorite coffee.
- Steward Your Physical Being – There is no debate that physical activity can and will benefit you in a variety of ways. Aside from the obvious physical benefits, exercise is great for mental clarity and improving emotional health. Make time for it in the morning. Secondly, fuel your body with a healthy diet. Some say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Others say that you should skip it, do an “intermittent fast” and wait until lunch to eat. Either way, when you do decide to eat something, make that something a good something. If you’re not sure what a healthy meal really looks like, do a little research and pay attention to which meals give you lasting energy and satiety.
I hope that helps you achieve a productive morning routine! Play around with a few different alterations on how this can work best for you. When you find something that seems to work well for you, be consistent and stick to it!
Check out The daily routine of 17 CEOs.