Productive is a sort of buzz word in some spaces. In other spaces, it is like magic. I happen to be the genie that will lead you to the magic. I know just how to be productive in the morning.
You need to make a plan the night before that will detail your morning, place away all distractions, and also sleep early then wake up and do something. These things will allow you to have an insanely productive morning because they break your sleep inertia, and will motivate you to work.
That’s more vague than usual, so here is a more detailed break down of what exactly I mean.
Why Can’t I Be Productive In The Morning?
The reason you can not be productive in the morning is due to sleep inertia. Sleep inertia is when you still remain asleep even after you have already opened your eyes, and climbed out of bed.
It is not normal for you to not be productive in the morning.
In the old days, serfs used to wake up before the sun was even up and immediately get to work on the farms. In fact, even our science shows us that morning is the most ideal time for productivity
The reason for this is that its in the morning when you have just woken up. Studies show that falling asleep increases your cortisol. This is known as Cortisol Awakening Response (CAR).
“The cortisol awakening response (CAR) is the change in cortisol concentration that occurs in the first hour after waking from sleep. It is typically assessed using salivary cortisol samples immediately after waking and then at intervals over the next hour.”
a.sTEPTOE, B. SWERWINSKI, STRESS:CONCEPTS, COGNITION, AND BEHAVIOR
Cortisol is notoriously tied with stress. This is because cortisol increase your alertness, and your energy. This is negative when there is nothing you can physically do about it.
However, it is a gift in opportune moments.
In moments when you can act, whether that is out on a battle field, out on the farm, or out in the business world, an increase in alertness, and energy will help you keep up, and perform at high efficiency. So then, why do most people feel tired, unmotivated, and lazy in the morning?
They don’t.
Sleep Inertia
There is a phenomenon known as sleep inertia. It is defined as “a temporary disorientation and decline in performance and/or mood after awakening from sleep”. It is called sleep inertia, because it is similar to force inertia.
In physics, there is the idea that force travels in a specific direction. When the car turns, your body continues in the original direction, making you lean over. This is force inertia.
Sleep inertia is when you are sleeping, then you wake up. But, your body remains asleep, and shut down. So you continue feeling sleepy.
Just like how force inertia eventually breaks, and you move properly again, sleep inertia can be broken.
There are things you can do that lessen, and permanently remove sleep inertia, which I taught here. But for now, we will be dealing with how to make your mornings most productive.
How Can I Be Super Productive In The Morning?
Step #1: Plan The Night Before
The first thing that you need to do to have a productive morning is to have specific plans the night before for the morning.
The secret to a productive morning, is a pre-productive night.
This is what most people do not understand. It is not uncommon to see people looking for specific habits that could assist them to be productive for the morning. However, this reveals a fundamental misunderstanding.
It seems people believe when they do these habits in the morning, they will be productive. But it is actually reverse. It is because you are productive that you will do these habits in the morning.
If you do not feel like being productive, then you won’t do any of these habits. So what can you do to make yourself feel like being productive? Plan the night before.
Planning the night before allows 3 main benefits.
- Boundaries: You will get clear boundaries on what you must do. This will allow you to feel that the task is actually doable.
- Satisfaction: When you manage to do the task, and then scratch it out of your list of to do things, it will allow you to feel a strong sense of satisfaction, which is something that you will eventually crave. So you will want to do it again the following day.
- Motivation: As you are writing this stuff down, you will feel a bout of motivation. Remember there are 3 things that motivate people. one of those things is curiosity. The desire to see if you can actually achieve what you set out to achieve. Making a plan will make you curious to test yourself. Thus, it will motivate you.
Step #2: Journal Your Day
In order to have a productive morning, you should start journaling your day at the end of the night.
This can be 5 lines written on the text slots of your phone. Or you can get a proper journaling book, and write down what you learn. You could even do a hybrid by journaling what you learn on your laptop’s word document.
It does not matter, just start writing.
We have already spoken about the importance of planning the night before. The question becomes, what exactly do you plan? That’s what this step is for.
Look back at your morning, and see just how productive it was. Then, write down what it was about the entire day that made it productive. Also, remember that there is no such thing as negative productivity.
You are either productive with useful things, or you are productive with useless things. No one does nothing.
So, it is either you were reading books, writing your books, working on your business plans, or training for the upcoming tournament that you have. Or, you were watching YouTube videos, watching movies, sleeping, eating, or indulging in sexual stuff.
The point is, you were doing something. So write whatever it was that you were doing.
Do not be lenient.
If you know that there was a time when you could have been working on something productive, but instead you spent that time binging shorts, then write that down. You need to learn specifically what useless productivity you do.
No not be overly critical.
If you had an actual good reason for not working, write that down. maybe you were sick, or you had to go help a family member. Even oversleeping is a good reason (if it is only 1 night out of the week. If it is more than that, read this.) Be fair.
Step #3: Make A Contingency Plan
You need to make secondary plans on top of the primary plans and goals.
After you are done journaling, you will have a good idea what you do with your useful productive days. However, you will also have a good idea of what you do in your useless productive days.
This is something you can take advantage of.
Make your plans for the following, but also make explicit plans to counter, and hinder the useless productive stuff.
For example, I tend to waste so much time watching shorts, whether it is on YouTube or Instagram. So, I use something called AppBlock on my phone. This blocks away all the apps, and I tend to get to lazy to open it, leading to me working.
If you overslept, make a plan to sleep early. If you have flue, think of what you can do indoors that does not need thinking. Maybe ordering your school works, or your equipment for when you have to work again. If you are called by family members to wash the dishes, make a plan on how you can wash the dishes quicker, or on where you will be doing your primary goal.
Step #4: Plan What You Will Actually Do The Following Days
You need to plan out what you will do the following day in a manner that will help you feel motivated.
with that journaling down, and the countermeasures complete, you should now begin writing your plan. But do not write the plan in a way that will only lead to you getting nothing done.
Instead, write it in a way that will encourage your productivity. There are 5 key road blocks to productivity; planning, procrastination, distractions, directions, and motivations.
Planning refers to the overall goal of the plan. If you have no goal, you obviously have no plan. it is written in the form of a verb and subject. Wash clothes, write chapter, eat supplements, etc.
This is followed by procrastination. Procrastination when you are supposed to be working at a specific time, and you push it further down the line. In order to not procrastinate, you need a specific work time, and also, you need to have a time that is free. So, look for a time when you are free, and then work at that specific time.
Distractions are the things that hold your attention. They may also be the things that you do when you are procrastinating. These can be physical external stuff like eating, watching TV, reading a book, or some other thing that is counter to that goal you set for that moment. You need to give that goal a full undivided attention for that amount of time you’ve set aside. So, you should write down your distractions, and the strategy of avoiding the distraction. Mine one is using AppBlock then putting the phone at the top of the cardboard. Also, I have maladaptive daydreaming, which is prolonged by repetitive physical movements. So i constrict my movement by tying my mouth shut, and trying myself to the chair.
Look for your own, and come up with strategies of how to deal with each. Use the previous step to find your useless productivities.
The directions is the specific steps you must take and follow to complete your goal. If you must write a chapter, you must plan the actions, the scene, and the opening line. Then you must begin drafting. That makes 4 things to do. Those are your directions. Break all your goals into these specific steps.
Motivation is what pushes you to want to do the task. There are 3 types; desire to gain something, fear of losing something, and a curiosity. So watch a video showing the people who are successful in your task, your those who failed, or the tutorials. Do this an hour before you have to start your work. Then see what it does to your productivity.
Step #5: Write Down Everything
To be productive in the morning, you must write down the plan that you made the night before.
We’ve already discussed the benefits of writing this all down. but now, we will show you how it is actually done.
You will write down Plan, Procrastination, Distractions, directions, and motivation, one under the other. You can even bold them if you want. Additionally, you will write down the plan in those 2 words, action and subject. Then, you will write down the time to start working, and time to stop for procrastination. You will write down the specific objects of distractions, then what method you can use to dismantle them. Then, you will write down the specific step by step directions to completing the goal. Finally, you will write down the things that you will use to motivate yourself before you start.
For example.
Planning: Write Dragon rider scene
Procrastination: Do this from 09:00 am-10:00
Distractions: My phone (social media), hunger, sleep, and daydreaming. I will leave my phone on the cardboard, and use the AppBlock. Then, I will make myself a sandwich and coffee at 08:50 am. Then, I will take my bed, and place it in the other room. I will then tie to mouth, and to my chair to stop daydreaming.
Directions: I will plan the scene location (town, weather, time, room). Then, the characters in the scene. Then plan the momentum of the scene (what are the characters fighting over, what is the momentum of the dialogue, and what is the momentum of the characters through the location). Finally, begin drafting with the line “Sometimes, Yrigddr couldn’t help thinking Odin’s decision to not axe her neck had actually been a punishment.”
Motivation: I will read a chapter of The Blade itself the hour before, also, I will have a packet of chips to eat as I work.
Step #6: Wake Up Timely
In order to have a more productive morning, it would help you to make sure that you wake up properly.
As we initially spoke about, it is fairly pointless for you to wake up to work early if you will have a severe case of sleep inertia.
Sleep inertia will hinder you from getting anything done, no matter how early you wake up. So you need to make sure that you break it. If you already know how to do that, then you can finish reading the blog here.
But if you want to know just how you could break sleep inertia, then you can read on.
Step #7: Sleep Early
To be more productive in the morning, it would help for you to sleep at the proper time.
The mistake that most people is sleeping as late as physically possible. This is in some sort of deluded attempt that managing to wake up on time after sleeping at the latest time possible is what makes them cool.
It does not make you cool. It destroys your productivity, and takes away your dreams from you. Stop doing it.
However, there is a select few who have the opposite problem. They sleep extra early in hopes that they will wake up energized.
Your body needs about 6-7 hours of sleep to be properly rested. Too much or too little is going to through this off, and leave you in the clutches of sleep inertia.
For a more in depth break down on how to beat sleep inertia, you can read here. One of the points discussed there is that you will want to sleep somewhere between 9-11. Then, wake up early in the morning.
Step #8: Immediately Do Something
It would help you be more productive is you were to immediately do something after waking up.
Studies show that when you do something early in the morning, it breaks your sleep inertia. This can be something productive like push ups, running, or some sort of school work. As long as it is a productive habit, then it will help destroy your sleep inertia.
Even something as small as a walk could help.
However, what is better is something that you want to do. So instead of watching that YouTube video at night, download it. When you wake up in the morning, the first thing that you should do is watch that video.
Step #9: Listen to Music
In order to have a more productive morning, you should try to listen to music.
The first thing that you could do when you wake up is listen to some sort of song. Preferably, an upbeat song. Songs make us want to dance, so that will have you climbing out of your bed before you know it.
In order to take it to a new level, go to YouTube and listen to those hit lists. Listen to it every time you work. Soon, you will start to feel like working every time you here that music. Thus, you will feel like waking up when you here that music. Once that happens, even I can see that you have began mastering mastery.