As I’ve gotten older I’ve realized more and more the importance of having a good morning routine. I’ve always considered myself to be a night owl and even had myself convinced that I do my best work late at night once everyone else went to bed.About six months ago I decided to put this theory to test and forced myself to go to bed earlier and wake up earlier to see if there would be a difference in my productivity. The results astonished me!Getting up early in the morning and more importantly creating a solid morning routine increased my productivity and consistency in completing daily tasks by ten fold if not more!There are a couple reasons I believe this happened and my hope is by sharing those reasons and my own personal morning routine it will convince you to at least give rising early a chance instead of assuming it’s just not for you!Life Hasn’t Taken Over Yet!One of the first things I noticed when I started waking up early was that it was easier to complete daily tasks like exercising, meditating, creating my daily to do list, eating a healthy breakfast, etc.Waking up early allows you to complete these type of tasks before getting bombarded by life’s unexpected curve balls.You now wake up realizing before you even start your day that you have time to complete all these different tasks by allotting them time in your morning routine. You also have the added benefit that most other people aren’t awake yet and you don’t have to worry as much about interruptions happening causing you not to complete those tasks.Before waking up early it wasn’t that I did not complete these tasks most days, it’s just that I wasn’t as consistent with doing them and would occasionally not do them.Most days I’d still exercise, however, plenty of times things would pop up later in the day that would end up causing me to miss out on going for my daily jog. Waking up early and setting aside the time first thing to exercise has caused me to hardly ever miss doing it.More EnergyIt’s easier to get things done and be more productive when your mind is fresh and you feel well rested. Sure, when you first get up at 5am in the morning you feel a little bit groggy (coffee helps), but as soon as you get moving you tend to feel refreshed and ready to conquer the day.I’ve found it much easier to brainstorm, read, etc. in the mornings than later in the evenings. You haven’t contended with a full day of life yet to make you tired and ready for bed!When I’d do things late at night I’d have to fight with feeling tired and forcing myself to stay awake to finish a project or task.BreakfastAnother great benefit to getting up early was that I started eating a healthy breakfast instead of stopping and grabbing something from Dunkin Donuts or worse skipping breakfast entirely. Your body has just went through an 8 to 9 hour cycle without any food because of sleeping and eating a healthy breakfast is a great way to kickstart your day and make you feel good.In fact, I became obsessed with green smoothies and for the first time in my life I started getting my daily fruits and veggies in my diet. This caused me to start eating more veggies with other meals and being more conscious of my diet choices as I didn’t want to undo the healthy effects a good breakfast had on my body!My Morning Routine5am – Wake up and make a cup of coffee. Coffee is necessary, don’t argue! After making my cup of coffee I sit down and just enjoy about 15 minutes of quiet time.5:15am – Get dress to exercise and then go for a 3 mile jog. Between getting dressed and jogging for 3 miles this takes me about 45 minutes.6am – Jump in the shower and get ready for my day! This includes, shaving, getting dressed, etc.6:45am – Make my breakfast! My breakfast consists of a Green Smoothie and a bowl of Oatmeal most mornings as it’s extremely healthy and filling!7am – Sit down in front of the computer and go over my daily to do list, plan my day, and check my goals.7:15am – Start working! Exactly what I start to do depends on my daily to do list, but I immediately start with the most important, hardest and most time consuming tasks first and get those out of the way.9am – By 9am in the morning I’ve completed most of my largest tasks for the day, I’ve ate a healthy breakfast, exercised, showered and gotten ready. From this point on, I could have meetings to attend, other work related activities to complete, etc.Get Started Today!One of the biggest reasons I think most people don’t ever try this is because they just refuse to start doing it. Give it a try, if it doesn’t work as well for you, you simply revert back to your old way!Waking up early isn’t as hard as people think. The trick…go to be early!I’d love to hear in the comments below what your morning routine is and if you’ve found waking up early to be more beneficial to your productivity and consistency in life! Let me know!Give it a try! It will be worth it!
