Morning is an important time of day because how you spend your morning can often tell you what kind of day you are going to have, and ultimately, what kind of life you will be living.
That’s right, morning is an essential time of day. If you want to have a productive day, you need to make sure you start your morning right.
In fact, a ton of books have been written about starting mornings the right way to increase productivity. Books such as The Miracle Morning, Make Your Bed, The 5 AM Club, and much, much more.
So, what do you need to do to build a productive morning routine?
Well, in this guide, I’m going to share with you my 3-step morning ritual that will maximize your productivity.
There are plenty of things you can do to kickstart your morning with motivation and productivity, but these 3 steps are what I found to be most effective for me…
1. Plan Ahead
Step #1, plan ahead. This step begins with reviewing your goals and purpose.
Everything we do, we do with a purpose. And Simon Sinek once said:
“Working hard for something we do not care about is called stress, working hard for something we love is called passion.”
You see, if you find it hard to wake up in the morning or you always dreaded going to work, there is a high chance that you lack a meaningful purpose.
If you don’t know why you are working hard or what is the purpose of getting up early, you will feel stressed, easily burn out, and you will never have the motivation to get up to get things done.
This is why the first thing you need to do is to realign yourself with your purpose. It could be your life’s purpose, your goals, and your targets.
Know why you want to get up each morning and what is your purpose on this earth.
When you are crystal clear with your purpose, you will wake up feeling excited and can’t wait to pursue your goals.
If you are unsure of your purpose in life, check out these 2 articles:
Now that you understand your purpose, it is time to plan ahead and jumpstart your morning with productivity.
I like how Larry Winget puts it:
“No one ever wrote down a plan to be fat, broke, stupid, lazy, unhappy, and mediocre. Those are the things that happen to you when you don’t have a plan.”
Remember, wars are won in the general’s tent. Plan your day so that you will know what you need to do to make progress and move forward.
If you go through your morning without any clear direction or plan, you will become reactive. You don’t know what to do and you will wait for things to come to do only to start moving.
But when you plan ahead, you will know what you need to get done. In short, you become proactive and become the person who goes and makes things happen.
Here are a couple of tips to help you plan your day…
- Start with your goals and review them. Find out what your goals for the day are and what you need to do to achieve them.
- Use a planning tool like a planner, a journal, or any digital Apps that helps you plan better.
- Schedule your action steps so that you will understand what needs to get done first.
- Make sure your action steps are specific and actionable.
- Plan your day, week, and even month in advance.
- Don’t forget to include playtime and downtime.
If you want to learn more about how to plan your day for better productivity, check out this article: 10 Tips How to Plan Your Day and Live a More Successful Life
2. Start Small and Be Consistent
That’s right, start small and be consistent.
I know, many people set big and bold goals and they want to do big things, but here’s what you need to understand…
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
Meaning, every big success was accomplished through small steps.
How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.
How do you accomplish a big goal? By taking one small step at a time.
It doesn’t matter how big the goal you want to achieve, if you cannot put yourself into taking small action steps, you will never be able to get the big goal done.
Success is a cycle, and you want to leverage small success to create bigger success. Read this guide to understand how success works and how small wins will lead you to big victories in life.
Besides starting small, you also want to make sure you are being consistent with your morning routine.
Dwayne Johnson, the famous Hollywood actor once said these words in an interview:
“Success isn’t always about greatness. It’s about consistency. Consistent hard work leads to success.”
According to research, it took about 66 days to form a habit. And that means no matter what kind of habit you want to develop, you need to be consistent for at least 66 days. Of course, more complex habits will require a longer time to develop.
Just like building this blog. I started from scratch, but with consistency, I have published more than 500 articles since the day I launched it.
And because of my consistency, this blog is receiving over a thousand visits every day. It is not a one-time work, and it is not something that happens overnight.
So I’m here to tell you that you can achieve anything you want if you are willing to start small and be consistent. This is especially true for your morning routine.
If you want to make your morning productive, always start small and be consistent. Like how I did for growing this blog. I started with publishing 2 articles a week. Small and consistent.
Here are more guides to help you:
- Why Start Small? The 5 Important Benefits of Starting Small
- 10 Amazing Methods How to Be Consistent in Achieving Your Goals
3. Build a Balance Morning Ritual
I love this productive morning guide from Oberlo. It says that a morning ritual should be balanced. And these are the 4 main areas for self-improvement:
- Mental: Read, listen to a podcast, plan your day, etc.
- Emotional: Practice gratitude, connect with loved ones, etc.
- Physical: Exercise, do yoga, drink and eat healthily, etc.
- Spiritual: Meditate, pray, spend time in nature, etc.
Thus, you want to build a morning ritual that includes all these areas to be balanced. You want to spend time working on each of these areas in your morning. Here’s an example:
6:00 AM – Wake up and write my gratitude journal (emotional)
6:10 AM – Pray and meditation (spiritual)
6:25 AM – Review goals and plan for the day (mental)
6:35 AM – Exercise/Tabata for 15 minutes (physical)
6:55 AM – Rest and shower
7:10 AM – Breakfast and start the day
The above is just an example. You can create your own morning ritual that suits your lifestyle. I include a 30-minute reading for most of my mornings, which you could do the same.
Here’s what you need to remember – creating a productive morning ritual doesn’t need to be complicated. Keep it simple so that you will stick to it.
And of course, try to make it balanced by including at least one activity from each of the self-improvement areas.
Now check out: 7 Best Morning Routine to Kick-Start a Great Day[s1]