What you decide to spend the first hour of your workday on is crucial. It sets the tone for the rest of the day. The most successful people all have daily routines they follow, which usually start out with an hour of productivity.
Instead of allowing yourself to slowly sip your coffee and waste time feeling lazy and sluggish, you need to jolt your mind and body into work mode to properly prepare for the day ahead.
Admittedly, you can’t complete the majority of your daily tasks within the first hour. But what you can and should do is make a habit of using this time productively.
Although we all spend our first morning hour differently, there are a couple of tips you can pick up from the most successful people, to boost your productivity and be a winner every single day.
Don’t Check The Email First Thing In The Morning
Unless your line of work requires you to be available to clients, customers or business partners 24/7. There’s really no reason to make checking your email a priority.
The reason for this is simple – reading and responding to emails doesn’t feel all that productive.
The founder of Tumblr, David Karp, said in his Inc. profile that he tries his best not to check his email until 10 a.m. He makes a good point when he says that “If something urgently needs my attention, someone will call or text me”.
Instead, you should spend the first hour on planning out your workday or focusing on a single, meaningful task. This way, you’ll feel much more productive, knowing that you’ve already completed at least one real task.
Tackle The Most Difficult Task First
Don’t put tasks off, especially if they’re complex, difficult, or not particularly appealing. There’s merit to completing the worst task first – you won’t spend the rest of the day dreading it. And everything else will seem a lot easier in comparison.
The time-management book “Eat That Frog” by Brian Tracy perfectly illustrates this. Using Mark Twain’s metaphor that if you eat a live frog in the morning, you’ll be able to face any and all challenges throughout the day and easily overcome them.
Once you get that dreaded task out off the way, you’ll be able to focus on more enjoyable (or at the very least less difficult) task for the remainder of the day.
So, leave room at the end of each day to find your “frog” for tomorrow. If you have the time, it pays to gather all the material necessary to complete that task. Making it less frightening and a bit easier to complete in the following morning.
After you’ve dealt with your “frog” for the day, you’ll feel empowered and ready to take on the world!
Successful People Always Plans & Organize
I’m sure I don’t need to stress out how important it is to plan out and efficiently organize your workday.
If you have unfinished tasks from the previous day, with new ones slowly creeping in, it’s easy to become overwhelmed by the amount of stuff you need to get done.
That’s why it’s vital to take the time to create a to-do list, highlight the most important task, especially if they have a tight deadline, and get to work.
This will allow you to manage your time more efficiently. Thus reducing the stress and distractions, and fully focus on one task at a time.
Sometimes you have to make a hundred decisions in a single day, and more work that you can realistically handle. In these situations, having a sound plan to follow and knowing which tasks are a priority will allow you to stay productive and get more done.
Gratefulness & Visualization
This is something that most entrepreneurs overlook. You need to take some time to keep yourself motivated by thinking about all your accomplishments and things you’re grateful for, and visualizing where you want to be in the future.
Tonny Robins, a renowned self-help author refers to this time as an “Hour of Power”, which he spends by motivating himself and practicing gratefulness and visualization.
He suggests that, in order to reach your peak of productivity, you need to incorporate this into your daily routine. His “Hour of Power” involves light exercise, motivational mantras, and most importantly – at least 10 minutes to remind yourself of what you’re grateful for.
Looking back on your accomplishments and being mindful of the things you’re grateful for will make you feel fulfilled, and inspire you to strive for even greater success.
Also, visualizing “everything you want in line as if you had it today” will give you that extra bit of motivation to work even harder towards achieving your goals.
As Yourself If You’re Doing What You Love
If you’re doing something you don’t actually enjoy every single workday, over time you’ll start losing motivation and become less and less productive.
Feeling unfulfilled at work and missing that vital sense of accomplishment isn’t something you can easily dismiss.
If you’re spending at least 40 hours a week doing something you don’t actually enjoy. It will inevitably reflect on your life as well.
What you can do is follow the routine Steve Jobs thought us and ask yourself “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?”
If you answer “no” for multiple days or weeks in a row, that’s a clear sign that you’re unhappy with your current situation and that something needs to change.
Start Off Your Day Doing What Makes You Happy
Your mood for the entire day is usually set early in the morning. That’s why it’s a good idea to spend a few minutes each morning to indulge yourself and do something you thoroughly enjoy.
It doesn’t have to be anything extraordinary. It can be something as simple as taking the time to enjoy your morning coffee, listening to your favorite song, or wearing your favorite shirt.
You can have a better idea of how successful people start their day below:
The idea is to create a habit of enjoying the small, simple things in life at the very start of each day.
Although it might seem trivial at first, you’ll notice that by doing these things, you’re putting yourself in a great mood and giving yourself a reason to look forward to the rest of the day.
Mediate
Meditation is an excellent way to clear your mind from the previous day, gather your thoughts, and start out fresh. It trains your mind to shut out the distractions and improves your focus, allowing you to increase your productivity.
Most people believe that the goal of meditation is to stop your flow of thoughts completely, which is neither true, nor possible. What meditation does is allow you to calm your mind, and instead of having your thoughts all over the place, learn to focus on one thing at a time.
There are tons of successful people who swear by dail meditation – Ariana Huffington, Russel Simmons, Ray Dalio, Andrew Cherng, Oprah Winfrey, to name a few.
If you’re having trouble focusing and feel like you’re easily distracted, with your mind constantly chattering, you should definitely give meditation a try.
Conclusion
These are a bunch of different ways in which you could start your workday on the right foot.
You can follow the examples I gave you in this post, or figure out your own routine, as long as it’s something productive that gets you going and puts you in the right mindset for the rest of the day.
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About The Author
Your Millionaire Mentor
Shaqir Hussyin
Shaqir Hussyin is the founder and CEO of WealthAcademy.com & Funnels.com. Nicknamed the “Backpack Millionaire”, he’s invested $350,000 into his own education and training. Whilst traveling to 100+ countries, Shaqir has built over 10+ million dollar brands and attracted over 500,000+ subscribers.
His signature program is now available: Max Income System; 14 Simple Steps To Making Your First Income System
Shaqir is also a highly sought-after speaker and direct response “Sales Funnels” global leader whose work has impacted over 100,000 businesses in 65 different countries. Connect with Shaqir on Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn & FB Group.
