How To Win Your Morning Without Getting Up Earlier

Tired of having rushed, chaotic mornings where you curse yourself for staying up too late or for not waking up earlier? It happens to the best of us, but it doesn’t have to. With a few tweaks to your morning routine, you can turn mornings into the best part of your day. It’s all about using those first few hours after you get up to set yourself up for success for whatever the day brings. And the best part? You don’t even have to wake up earlier to make it happen.

These strategies can help you own the morning and give you all-day energy and focus:

• Grab onto that midmorning genius- According to science, we’re most productive, creative and focused in the morning, so it’s good to schedule your most mentally demanding tasks early.
• Stop wondering, get started- We tend to put things we don’t want to do off until later, but that procrastination and fear of the unknown can be worse than just digging in and doing what needs to be done. Knowing what’s ahead can be empowering, so use your morning time to check that email, review the form to see how long it is, or flip through the instruction booklet. Whatever it is, get started now and you’ll save a lot of emotional and mental energy.
• Make a smarter to-do list- Crossing something off your list feels great, but research on goal making shows that the tasks we didn’t do yet can clutter our minds and keep us from giving 100% to things we’re trying to complete. But there’s a science-proven fix: Making a plan to simplify work on the thing you’re putting off. Organizing your to-dos into three “buckets” can help, too.
  • The indisputable- The non-negotiables that you have to do today, no matter what, like getting the kids to school at 8am.
  • The manuals- These are things you can squeeze in, when you have the time, like loading your credit cards into Apple Pay on a new phone.
  • The floaters- The tasks you want to finish in the next 30 to 60 days, like a catch up call with an old friend. And just writing them down is enough for today.
• Focus on the fun- This is the good part! It’s whatever makes you excited to get out of bed and that’s how you should start your day, whether it’s coffee, meeting a friend for yoga or whipping up a smoothie.

Source:Men's Health