How to Make Your Mornings More Productive

by Gbemi-Lolade

Go on the street and ask an average to a highly person when he is most productive and the answer you’ll get is morning. Now, I’m not saying everybody is productive in the morning, but most people feel that they get the most out of the day in the mornings.

Still a lot of people complain about not getting their work done at the end of the day, etc. These simple steps can help figure out how to make the most of your waking hours and the hours before noon:

·         Plan your day the night before, prioritizing your tasks. Have a defined line on what you want to achieve the next day. 

·         Understand how your body works as it concerns sleeping. Calculate and understand the hours of sleep your body needs to function properly. It differs from individual to individual. Some people don’t sleep a lot and function well while some people need a certain amount of sleep to be productive. I usually need about 5 hours sleep to function well and be productive. So, if you are like me, you need to calculate your sleeping hours, bed time and wake up hour.

·         Wake up early. Get out of bed at the time you said you would, don’t hit the snooze button when your alarm goes blaring at you. All the 5 minute mores can kill your productivity for the whole day. 

·         Have a morning routine that helps you to be productive. You can meditate and study some things. Exercise is really good for your mind. Do a little bit of exercise every morning before having your bath. It keeps your mind and body alert throughout the day.

·         Eat breakfast: I’m not saying you should open up the day with a huge pot of carbohydrate, but you should have something light, cereal, fibre etc.

·         Read on your way to work. If you go to work by public transport, read in the bus. Carry a book with you or have ebooks on your phones/tablets, so you can read as you go. And if you drive to work, get audio books and listen to them on your way to work.

Don’t Hit the Snooze Button!

·         Have an early start at work. Get to work on time and start on earlier than the official work hour. It tunes you up for the day and what you want to achieve.

·         Don’t fix meetings in the morning. Meetings have a way of making you tired, all the talk and brain storming can feed on your energy. So, conserve your energy and use it properly in the morning, fix your meetings for afternoons. 

·         Set a time for responding to emails and pings: There’s a reason emails are called snail mails (according to my imagination); it’s because it slows you down. If you are the email addict, always checking to see if you have a mail, you’ll keep responding to everything including the things that can be responded to, later. Keep the pinging and emailing for later, the early hours should be utilised judiciously.

·         Put a borderline on your surfing: The internet is a wonderful gift that I cherish so much, but it can also be a great distraction, if not planned in usage. Put a check on your surfing of internet. You can reward yourself with some surfing after completing each task on your outline.

·         Do what you know will make you more productive. And yes, your guess is right, I like uneven numbers so I had to tuck this eleventh one in.