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Have you ever woken up in the morning, rolled out of bed, brushed your teeth, made a cup of coffee and said: “I know exactly what I’m going to do today”.
If the answer is yes, first of all, that’s awesome and keep it up.
Second, you can stop reading right now.
If the answer is no, then welcome to most entrepreneurs lives. We wake up and roll out of bed, grab a coffee, scratch our heads and then use Morning Brain (trademarking that) to try to figure out what we need to accomplish.
Do we even realize that our brains are approximately 400% more active before we go to sleep? (my research has shown). We can barely fall asleep with all the thoughts of emails, messages, and dishes in the sink.
So why are we trying to figure out what to do when we wake up?
The answer is, we shouldn’t. We should replace this morning lack of direction with a game plan, a mission. That’s what men need, let alone entrepreneurs.
So when do we make this mission?
Well, first you should have a pretty good idea of what you want to accomplish with your life, or at least know that you’re on a mission to get there (I suggest the selfauthoring.com program). Second, you should start with a pre/post sleep routine.
What is a pre/post sleep routine?
Its when you take a small part of your night, right before you hop into your amazing bed that you hopefully read reviews on from Sleepcompare beforehand. Then (hopefully) plug your phone in the other room and do some mental sleep prep.
This is when you do your night routine write down your goal list, do a short meditation, and take a deep breath (and whatever else you might need).
And this is the crucial part: Open your work journal (that you should have) and write down precisely what you accomplished today, and what you need to accomplish tomorrow.
No, this is not a task list.
A task list sits on your smartphone for you to check off a few things every Sunday when you have a few hours.
This is a mission list, this is what you must take care of, those things that fell through the cracks today.
Your mind is already running rampant from all the days activities and this is the perfect opportunity to offload some thoughts so we can sleep better.
When you’re done it can look something like this.
10/25/2018 Mission List
- Podcast
- Pay Editor
- Buy new mic
- Invite 3 guests
- SEO
- Make sure plugins are up to date on site
- Get the second certificate
Bla blah blah, you get the idea.
The next night you look through the list and comment.
10/25/2018 Mission List
- Podcast
- Pay editor-check
- Buy new mic-looked at 2 reviews, need to order tomorrow
- Invite 3 guests- 2/3 done
- SEO
- Make sure plugins are up to date on site- didn’t have time, will do tomorrow
- Get second certificate-check
And then you carry over the remainder to the next day (remember math? I don’t).
10/26/2018 Mission List
- Podcast
- Return old mic
- Submit to Spotify
- Buy new mic- looked at 2 reviews, need to order
- Invite 1 guest
- SEO
- Make sure plugins are up to date on site- last day to accomplish
- Make sure graphics are updated
That’s it – this should take you about 5 minutes and save you about an hour of productivity every morning (as per my research).
Now you do the morning routine. When you wake up, sit down with your coffee, or smoothie (find the perfect blender here at adept living and remember to drink some water because we lose a few liters of water in our sleep) and review the list, that’s all.
This will work as a sort of backup to our previous night’s thoughts, we instantly go – Aha! That’s what I need to do right away.
Now go off and accomplish your mission.
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This content is sponsored by Chaim Pinson.
Photo by Jeff Sheldon on Unsplash