The most productive days start with the best morning rituals. It can be hard to get into a productive state of mind so early in the morning, but it’s important to remember that your morning rituals set the tone for the rest of your day. If you wake up late and miserable, throw on some pants and rush out the door with a piece of toast, you’re setting yourself up for a low-energy, rushed day. If you start every day with these five morning rituals, however, you’ll be happier, have more energy, and be able to focus during the day.
Keep Track with Fabulous
Fabulous helps you to keep track of all your morning rituals. You choose which habits you want to work on from an infinite list of possibilities, whether it’s remembering to eat breakfast, calling your parents, or taking your vitamins. You can add as many as you want, just remember that if you try to build too many rituals at once and you’ll have a hard time maintaining them all. Once you’ve found a few rituals that suit your needs and your lifestyle, Fabulous will help you build and maintain them.
If you wake up late and miserable, throw on some pants and rush out the door with a piece of toast, you’re setting yourself up for a low-energy, rushed day.
Drink Water
Do you wake up every morning feeling groggy and nauseous, and do you notice you feel much better after you’ve gotten up and moved around a little? That’s because we get so dehydrated overnight after having gone more or less 8 hours without drinking any water.
Keep a big glass or water bottle of cold water next to your bed and take a sip every time you wake up during the night, and again as soon as your alarm goes off in the morning to keep yourself hydrated and energized. You’ll be less determined to hit the snooze button and have an easier time waking up after you’ve chugged a cold glass of water.
Tackle Your Hardest Task First
Tackling your hardest task first does two things: First, it gets your toughest project out of the way so everything else on your to-do list feels easy by comparison. And second, once you complete it, you’ll feel accomplished and motivated to work hard for the rest of the day. If you leave your hardest task for last, it looms over your head all day, and only leads to stress and distraction from all your other work.
Write
Every morning, write down two things: the first is what you’re grateful for. A surprising number of successful CEOs and entrepreneurs spend anywhere from five to 30 minutes each morning writing down the things they are grateful for. Reminding yourself of the things you appreciate most helps you to be more focused during the day, more conscious of the people and things that matter most to you, and overall happier with your life.
The second thing to write every morning is your intention for the day. Writing down something you want to accomplish that day helps you to live more purposefully and feel like you’re working toward something every day. Going about your days with no specific goal can make you feel helpless and like you don’t have any control over your life. In reality, you’re the most in control of your life, and it helps to consciously decide what it is that you want to achieve that day, whether it’s as simple as making it to the gym before dinner or landing a new client at work.
Move
Whether you go for a run or stretch in bed, it’s important to wake yourself up by moving. You’d be surprised how awake you feel after something as simple as stretching—it increases circulation, which increases your energy levels, and increases blood flow to your brain, which helps you focus more during the day. It also feels so good on your muscles after you’ve been laying stiffly in bed all night.
And if you’re able to wake up early enough to exercise, you’ll feel refreshed and more motivated for the day knowing you have one less thing to worry about after work.
