What should be included in your morning routine

Do more in less time

How often do you find yourself in the situation where you wished there were 48 hours in a day? By working more efficient during the day more work can be done in the same amount of time. Below tips might help increase the amount of work done during the day.

Starting your day

1. Make your to do list the evening before and not on the day of execution.
2. Buy an alarmclock and leave your phone in the livingroom at night. Don’t use your phone in bed before sleep and while waking up.
3. Take a shower in the morning, that really helps wake up your brain. This way you already start thinking about how to finish your tasks for the day.
4. Put on the right clothing, don’t sit in your pyjama but instead put on clothing that you would use for meeting business people outside.
5. Take a good breakfast without sitting behind your computer. Don’t use your phone during breakfast as your brain will get distracted from the actual tasks it should start working on in a moment.
6. Put a bottle of water (1L) on your desk and empty it during the day. If possible, fill it again somewhere during the day.
7. Make sure your desk is clean, empty and only has the most elemantary things on it like paper and pencil.
8. Morning routine: Check for any birthdays in your calendar and/or Facebook if you happen to have an account. Send out birthday wishes to look like you’re very social and to keep in touch with everyone.
9. Once behind your computer, immediately start with your todo list. Don’t end up with clicking through news websites as the start of your day. Also avoid Youtube in the morning. It will make you lazy and procastrinating your actual work.

Additional tips that might make your workflow more smooth

1. For when you work in the evening: Take care of good lighting to create to right ambiance. For me I have a warm glow of light (2700K) behind my PC monitors + some RGB blue / purple lights.
2. When you are behind a desktop, consider using 3 monitors. I thought this was overkill but it was one of the best investments I did to work more efficient.
3. Add all your e-mail inboxes to your Outlook desktop and check all of them in the morning for possible missed emails (including junk folder)
4. Don’t force yourself when it just doesn’t go for a moment. Start doing something else, cleaning the house, search for new music, going out for groceries or just take a drive with some good music and sing along if you want.
5. When doing something different than work you’ll become inspired by all the impressions and find simple solutions for problems you didn’t see before.