Instantly Improve Your Mornings With This One Change

Meditation. Affirmations. Journaling. You know what I’m talking about.

Don’t get me wrong. These practices are legitimate and can be incredibly fulfilling. They can help you find peace, grounding, and stillness amid chaos, and they set you in the right frame of mind for the coming day.

But if a routine like this is the first thing you do when you wake up, you’re making a mistake.

Let’s back up.

You’ve probably got goals. If you’re smart, you focus on one or two goals at a time and avoid inundating yourself with a thousand objectives. Because you want results, you try to make progress toward those goals every day.

The problem?

The day can get away from you. Urgent e-mail, unexpected calls, a coffee break that turns into an hour of Instagram. Distractions like these crop up almost daily, and while they’re a perfectly normal part of life, they can make our days feel unproductive.

Here’s how to make sure that days like these don’t get in the way of consistent progress toward your goals.

When you wake up, have a glass of water. Use the bathroom.

Then, before you do literally anything else — including checking your phone — put between thirty and forty-five minutes of focused work toward your goal.

If you’re studying for an upcoming exam or certification, study without interruption. If you’re a writer refining your craft, write. If you’re a designer, work on your portfolio.

…

This tactic works especially well for what I like to call “Type A minus” people.

You’re this type if:

You’re a pretty high achiever, but you also don’t feel the need to excel at every single thing you do
You set goals regularly and tend to accomplish them, but you leave some projects unfinished and sometimes miss your targets
You let yourself relax now and then, but you get anxious if you take too much downtime
Your discipline tends to be solid but goes through ebbs and flows

Studies show that for most people, the morning is the best time to focus. We haven’t yet begun to deal with the tasks, errands, and surprises that cause mental clutter, and we can lean into the stillness and solitude to find flow.

In the last few weeks, I took up this routine to make progress as a writer. My alarm goes off around 7:20, and while I don’t always succeed, I do my best to resist a phone check. I use the bathroom and have a full glass of water. I stretch for a minute or two.

I then grab my laptop, sit down at my desk or on the couch, and begin to write.

I use a timer so that I don’t end up spending too much time refining my craft. 30 or 40 minutes feels ideal for me. When it goes off, I finish my thought, shut my computer, and step outside for my daily walk around the neighborhood.

Not surprisingly, my morning walk is immeasurably more relaxing and joyful.

As someone who tends toward anxiety, my morning walks used to feel like short blips of enjoyment surrounded by nagging thoughts about how to carve out time to accomplish my goals that day.

I could walk two blocks having seen nothing.

Now, as I walk along the Hudson River, I notice the way the morning haze shrouds the downtown skyline, giving it a surreal matte finish as if it were an old painting. I appreciate the way the fall air balances the sharp coolness of the early breeze and gentle warmth of the sun.

My mind is quiet.

I then transition into my work day with the momentum of having done something meaningful in pursuit of a goal and the energy of a clearheaded, enlivening morning walk.

I still carve out time for things like journaling, breath work, and meditation, of course.

Usually, I do at least one of these things before I start working. A bit of journaling, even if just a few couple of bullet points, sharpens my mind further. A few minutes of the physiological sigh, popularized by Andrew Huberman, keeps me at ease for the entire day. But unlike before, I now wait until after I put some early work in toward my goals.

Try this for a week, and watch your days get better.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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From The Good Men Project on Medium

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