Morning mode: how prosperous people start their day

Regardless of whether you are an early bird or an owl , at some point you have to start your day. And it seems that this happens differently for everyone. Although there seems to be no perfect morning schedule suitable for everyone, you can make the start of the day right by learning a lot from successful people, as well as using research data and inspiring ideas.

Some of us go to the Internet to check social networks, others are immersed in e-mail, others eat breakfast, do exercises or prepare school lunches for their children. There are millions of different ways to spend the morning.
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What mode could be the most successful for the morning?

Although there seems to be no perfect morning schedule suitable for everyone, you can make the start of the day right by learning a lot from successful people , as well as using research data and inspiring ideas.

I gathered a variety of options for how best to start your day. Here are the best of my finds. Perhaps they will help you make your own morning a little more productive, creative and enjoyable.

Scientists declare: willpower is strongest in the mornings, so get down to business actively

Probably, you have heard such advice: first of all, there must be something significant and significant in a day - a task that requires high concentration, will and determination. The reason is simple: our composure is limited.

This concept is visually represented using a force model. Self-control is formed on the basis of shared resources, which are depleted over time. Willpower can be considered as a muscle in which the load causes fatigue.

At Nottingham University and the National Institute of Education of Singapore, scientists analyzed 83 studies on self-control, and came to this conclusion:

The results revealed a significant effect of the weakening of internal forces on performance in the performance of tasks related to self-control. The depletion of resources had the strongest effect on the efforts made, the perception of the complexity of the task, negative emotions, the subjective feeling of fatigue and the level of blood glucose

For those who work at home, both psychological and physiological factors affect the ability to perform work.

The closer to the evening, the stronger the "fatigue", weakening willpower . So, the more important it is to benefit from the early morning.

The easiest way to fool the morning: a list for tomorrow

Everywhere, from research and data analysis to the words of Mark Twain, one can find the same advice: do great things in the morning.
Twain's recommendation is in his famous statement:

Eat a live frog in the morning, and nothing more terrible will happen to you in a day

We need to accept the phrase Twain: "Solve the most difficult tasks in the first place." If you start with a big business (project / frog), the rest of the day will seem pretty nice by comparison.

This statement even served as a source of inspiration for the bestseller Brian Tracy's title of time management “Eat That Frog”. FastCompany talked about this work to Tracy in an article on morning rituals and asked Lifehacker founder Gene Trapani to explain how you can implement the frog strategy in your daily routine.
Step One: Choose Your Frog!

“Having done this,” continues Trapani, “write its name on a piece of paper and arrange it so that it becomes the first thing you see when you come to the office the next day.” And when the alarm clock rings in the morning, or you arrive at work, enjoy!

Enjoy your meal!

There are many examples of this particular method of eating frogs. You will meet a couple of them below. Here is a concept that I prefer to call the “list for tomorrow”.

1. In the evening, write down the things you need to do tomorrow.
2. Take a look at the list, starting work the next morning.
3. End your day by creating a new list for tomorrow.

Continue in the same spirit.

Morning mode of Steve Jobs: one simple question

In his speech at the graduation ceremony, which he gave at Stanford in 2005, Steve Jobs revealed the motivational tactics that he used at the beginning of each day.

For the past 33 years, I looked at myself in the mirror every morning and wondered: “If this day was the last in my life, I would like to do what I am going to do today?
And if the answer was negative for many days in a row, I knew that something had to change.

Powerful enough reception. Would such a question help you in the future to do your morning business?

10 morning rituals of successful people

Great, we mentioned the scientific background of morning habits; frogs, which must be eaten first; and inspirational questions forcing you to get down to business. Now is the time for details.

This is how famous historical figures, entrepreneurs, founders and executive directors begin their morning.

Ron Friedman, Founder and Writer

Ron Friedman shared this inspiring morning reminder. Here is how it looks.

Ask yourself this question at the moment when you sit at the desktop:

The day is over, and I leave the office with a sense of the greatest satisfaction. What have I achieved?

Many of us check email or listen to voice messages almost on the machine. For many reasons, these actions can be called one of the worst options for the start of the day. By capturing our focus, they put us in a reactive mode, where other people’s priorities are the focus. They are like going to the kitchen for the sake of finding a pool that needs to be wiped, or pots that need cleaning.

Kenneth Chenot, CEO, American Express

The last action that Chenot performs on the evening before leaving the office is to make a list of three things that he wants to complete tomorrow. Later he uses this list to start a new day.

Anna Wintour, Vogue editor in chief

One of the most wonderful morning habits I discovered was tennis. Wintour starts his every day at 5:45 am with an hour-long tennis match.

Margaret Thatcher, former British Prime Minister

It was believed that Thatcher was able to manage less sleep than everyone else. Therefore, even the nightly political meetings did not prevent her from waking up at 5 am and listening to “Farming Today” - a popular program of BBC radio station about food, farming and rural areas.

Benjamin Franklin, founding father of the United States

The vaunted list of affairs of Franklin (see below) included several specific rules, following which he began every morning. The three-hour morning block started at 5:00 and included an appeal to the “Powerful Virtue” and a plan for the rest of the day.

Every morning, Franklin asked himself: “What good will I do today?”

P. G. Woodhouse, Writer and Humorist

Waking up at 7:30 in the morning, Woodhouse went straight to the back porch to get a “daily dose” of gymnastics. Then he came back, had breakfast (always a toast and a cupcake with tea) and read a “book for breakfast” - some fascinating detective story or adventure novel.

The ritual of creating texts at Woodhouse was also well honed. He started sitting down in a chair, and wrote a few paragraphs by hand before moving over a typewriter and tapping everything else.

William Styron, novelist

To confirm that morning is not for everyone starts at the same time , just look at William Styron. He slept until noon, and his “morning” regime allowed him to spend one more hour in bed, thinking and reading.

Eva Chen, editor in chief of Lucky magazine

When he wakes up, Chen checks Twitter and his favorite websites first. She avoids watching TV because of her penchant for sticking to the screen for the sake of such shows as OC Repeats. Going into the Internet and putting on make-up, Chen dresses, starting with shoes.
After she arrives at the office, a large cup of green tea becomes the first item on her agenda.

David Karp, founder of Tumblr

Carp postpones reading the mail until he is at work at 9:30 or 10:00. He gets there from home in 15 minutes on foot or even faster if he goes to Vespa.

“If something requires my attention immediately, someone will call me or send a message,” he says.

In the workplace, Karp's first business is checking email. He scans the inbox containing emails only from members of the Tumblr team and his lover. Then he carefully checks the folder "unparsed" with other e-mails, in between cases, compiling a list of tasks that he needs to perform in his notebook.

Craig Newmark, Craigslist Founder

How does craigslist founder begin its day? When this question was asked of him at Quora, Newmark replied: "I serve customers." Few founders chose Newmark, who considers himself a customer service representative on Craigslist. So while other CEOs begin their work with meetings or email, Newmark concentrates on the consumer.

Your turn: what does your morning routine look like?

Do you have anything in common with Benjamin Franklin, Steve Jobs, Margaret Thatcher and others? What is included in your unique morning schedule?

PS We recommend another useful article on the topic of work on yourself - 8 things that everyone should do after 8 pm .

The author of the translation is Vyacheslav Davidenko, the founder of the TESTutor company.