Get up, clear my mind and get stuff done.
There’s a lot written about the magic of morning routines.
Personally, I believe the morning routine should be really simple:
- Make sure you have already decided what’s important to get done
- Get up, get ready and get it done
- …anything else is procrastination and risks reducing the amount of attention-space you have to do your important work.
If you want to create something special, if you want to do your best work — clear space, focus and get the work done.
My top tips are:
- Be prepared: make sure you have all the information and resources ready and to hand so you can focus on the work and not faffing about trying to find things.
- Clear your mind: before you start your work is spend 2–3 minutes clearing your mind.
My process for this is:
- Set a timer for 2 or 3 minutes
- Just focus on breathing — in & out
- When the timer stops take a sheet of paper & make a note of anything that came into your mind
- Then put the sheet of paper to one side — permission to park it.
- Do your most important work
- The retrieve the sheet and process any items that need to be actions or just let it go
Getting your important stuff done means giving that work your undivided attention.
After that you can do all the other things that then maintain your creative self — go for a walk, run, gym, drink green tea, clear down email etc.
But more than anything get your most important work done first.
Originally published at medium.com