Details
- Type: Various
- Time needed: 1 hour
- Frequency: Daily
Short version
Make a 1 hour-long morning routine, that you’ll do every day. Fill it with activities that are useful, beneficial, healthy, productive – whatever will help you either start the day well, or get things done that you need to do.
Benefits
- Better start to the day
- Better end to the day, because no matter what else, at least you spent one hour in a beneficial way
Description
The name for this one is a bit cheesy. The HOUR of POWER!
If it sounds like something that came from an 80s self-help book, that’s because it probably is something that came from an 80s self-help book. I believe Tony Robbins was the first to recommend this habit, but I could be wrong.
In spirit, this is a productivity technique, but you can adapt this to fill it with any tasks that you’ll find useful.
The gist of it is, you decide on an hour’s worth of productive activities, stuff that is really useful, beneficial, or healthy for you to do. Then you do all that stuff first thing on a morning (well, you can pee first).
Even if you procrastinate and waste the entire rest of the day (which, presumably, you will try not to do), then you’ve at least got that hour of good stuff in.
Also, procrastination begets procrastination – if you start the day off poorly, the rest of it has a better chance of following suit. Conversely, motivation follows action – if you start the day off well, you’re more likely to spend the rest of it well.
How to do it
Ask yourself, what do you have to do each day, so that you end the day feeling like you spent the day well?
Think of a few things that either:
- Help you in the day ahead. For example:
- Planning three key tasks for the day
- Reviewing your goals for the year to make sure you’re on track
- Getting any notes, materials, or files prepared
- Help you in your life overall. For example:
- Exercise
- Meditation
- Yoga
- …or any exercise on this site that you’re finding useful
For example, if you exercise and meditate on the same day, then you know you’ve done something to look after your mental performance, emotional state, fitness, appearance, and health.
Imagine doing 20 minutes of meditation, a 10-minute YouTube exercise video, then 10 minutes of yoga to loosen up, then 20 minutes planning your main tasks for the day and the order you’ll do them.
You’d start the day feeling energised, focused, fresh, limber, and knowing exactly what you need to do. Not a bad way to be if you want to get stuff done.
Schedule
1 hour every morning.