What’s Your Morning Routine?

Routine. Can anything sound more boring? And if you’re similar in style to me, routine is seemingly so opposite of spontaneous.  Now that’s a fun word! However, I’d like to challenge your paradigm on this…Another interesting word, perhaps for another article.

 I believe the stronger and more effective your morning routine, the more freedom you’ll have to be spontaneous and FUN. 

 Whether you are a “morning person” or not (personally I prefer sleeping in the morning, but that’s just me), studies show that people are most creative and focused in the early morning hours. We are also less likely to deal with life’s interruptions – email, phone calls, co-workers, or even family – in the early morning hours. Did I just call family an interruption?  Moving on…

 How do you invest your mornings?  Do you awake at the same time? Do you follow a specific pattern of tasks and actions?  Do you use this time for some of the “big rocks” – like exercise, reading, prayer and meditation, or even strategic work-related tasks? If you don’t, I suggest you do.  How many times are these key actions pushed throughout the day, only to fall off the other end because you ran out of time, or better yet, you ran out of energy or motivation?

 I suggest you write out a “successful day in the life.”  If you could look back over a series of days, where you planned and acted upon areas of your life and work that matter most (usually non-urgent, but highly important actions), would you feel pretty good having honored these things?  I suspect you’d feel great, and eventually, your life and business would reflect that. You’ll probably find yourself less and less in a crisis mode throughout the day as well.

 What am I saying?  If you are going to plan any part of your day (please do!), plan the morning and build a success routine that honors what matters most in your life, or that allows you the freedom to honor those things later in the day, by getting the other things out of the way.

 You might even find that, with a successful morning routine, and less need for crisis management, you are free to be more spontaneous during the day!