Six Morning Habits to be More Productive

A self-development article that connects the theory and action.

Morning in Dieng Plateau, Indonesia (Photo: Anthony K.J/ Self Collection)

You might think that this is another theoretical content about productivity. But, you wrong. I will try to give my point of view on which theory best fits to be practiced in daily life. Here are the six habits that I think could be easily practiced daily.

1. Silence
   The simple word is to meditate. The idea of this activity is not to think anything, because when you didn’t force yourself to think, sometimes you could get a fresh idea and a fresher mind. Basically, meditation didn’t require a dark place with a candle or fragrance on it. You just need to sit anywhere you feel comfortable. Then, just try to maintain your breath and don’t think anything. But, you need to keep attentive and whenever you get a new idea, you could stop your meditation and write it down on your notes. Don’t force yourself to meditate too long on the first try. I just meditate about 5 minutes in my first try, but try to keep going. In my opinion, the ideal duration will be 10 minutes to get a lot of idea.
2. Affirmation
   Put a note on what you want to be in one day and your long term goals. You need to make new affirmation notes for every day and refresh your long term goals every time you have already achieved it. Basically, this is something that could make you happy and feel motivated. No need to be specific. In every morning, I stated “I am a productive person and I will finish at least 5 tasks this day”. For the long term, I stated “I am a rich person in the future and I will have at least 3 houses in my country”. So, the idea is to stated the condition for yourself and followed by your specific target. Not only an imaginary target but set it as your commitment. Then, your daily activity will be focused to reach it.
3. Visualization
   Easily, try to imagine what you will be in the whole day. Before you start your activity, try to imagine every activity and how it will be executed. In my experience, I need to practice routine as I am joining a Badminton competition. In the morning, I try to visualize that in one day I could practice 5 hours with 2 hours for physical training, 2 hours for technique training, and 1 hour for the cumulative break time. Then, I also keep in my mind that I will do this routinely for 2 months and at the end, I will win the competition. This visualization could help to keep in track and become more discipline with daily activity. Also, it help to motivate more. Finally, I could win the Badminton competition.
4. Exercise
   This might be the hardest morning activity. The idea here is to wake your body up. Some of you might think, “Why don’t we wake ourselves by taking bath or drink a cup of coffee?”. Well, I think that also at the very first time. However, after I try to exercise in the morning, I feel that this is what my body want. Basically, you try to stretch all your muscle after being rested in the night. This activity make your body feel more energized rather than only taking a shower or drinking coffee which only affect for a few hours. The more energized yourself, the more activity that you could do. Try to start it with a 7-minutes exercise and if you have time, you could increase the duration. Moreover, this activity could help you to get out of your addiction with coffee which is not good for your health.
5. Read
   In this modern era, people will have a less interest to read. Reading is very important to explore a new knowledge. You could read anything that you feel comfortable. It could be a magazine, book or newspaper. If you are too lazy to buy or bring a book to read, you could use application in your gadget. Try to find a new information in the morning and it could change your life for that day. I have a daily routine to read a newspaper in the morning. One day, I read that there will be a road closure in one of the street that I use to go to my office. This simple example in my experience already change my life that day. Let’s say if I didn’t read anything in the morning, I might be late to the office. Furthermore, you could read some self-development book to gain long term goals. One of my recommendation is “The 100-Year Life” by Andrew J Scott and Lynda Gratton. Don’t force yourself too much, you could start it with 5 pages per days and in a month you could get 150 pages. Try to start from the small step.
6. Journal
   Write a journal of what you have done in the past and write on what you want to do in the future. This will help you feel more motivated as you will know what is your achievement. Also, this journal could help you to move forward and help you to focus on with your goals. Actually, you could do this activity in anytime on the day. But, if you write this in the morning, it will help you to keep motivated in the whole day which is very important. I write my journal in a book, but if you didn’t like it, you could write it on your online notes. Try to implement it with your own style.

Actually, I start to practice these 6 habits in the age of 20 because I think that I need to improve my productivity. The theory that inspire me to do these habits is come from the book “The Miracle Morning: The Not-so-obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life Before 8AM” written by Hal Elrod. I have implement it all and I have already shows all the example above.

The notes that I would give at the end of this article is nothing is too late. Sometimes people think that they are too young or too old to practice the good habits. This also come in my mind at the very first time I want to start. But, I think that it is better to start rather than never.