The Secret to Productive Mornings is to Make Them Easier not Earlier | Nick Wignall


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It's popular these days to talk about the importance of getting up incredibly early and being productive before the sun's even up. In fact, if you've been online at all over the past couple years, you've probably read one of those horrifying... I mean...


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The power of morning routines

  • Routines drastically reduce the amount of logistical and psychological friction in between us and our goals.
  • Good routines are also powerful motivation generators. In add...

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The secret to productive mornings

... is to make them easier, not earlier.

Forget about getting up insanely early every morning.  How much time we have in the mornings is far less important than how we spend the t...

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Prep your day the evening before

Reduce the number of decisions and tasks you have to do each morning in between waking up and doing your work:

  • Decide on and lay out your clothes for the following day the ...


Get a good night’s sleep

Good sleep makes everything better. It’s extremely hard to do cognitively-demanding and creative work when we’re sleep-deprived. 

Low energy, difficulty concentrating, fatigue, irritabil...


Improving your sleep

  • Try to go to bed and wake up at the same time each day, even weekends.
  • Getting into bed before you’re truly sleepy is a great way to start worrying, which leads to arousal and d...


Don’t snooze

In addition to hurting the quality of your sleep, snoozing is detrimental psychologically: it leads to an erosion of self-confidence and the ability to follow through on our own best in...


Shower right away

Psychologically, by doing all the things that go along with showering like combing your hair, brushing your teeth, getting dressed, etc., you’re communicating to your brain in no uncertain terms...


Reward yourself for getting out of bed

Don't rely on willpower. The smarter way to tackle the morning is to build routines and rituals that pull us out of bed and toward our goals.

Create a pre-work morning routine th...


A pre-work Activation Ritual

For example, every day when you get to your desk and sit down to work, play the same song before I start any work.

This is important because it serves as a cue to your brain to go int...


Work deeply

Working for extended periods with full concentration and no distractions, on a single task requires:

  • Knowing the day before what exactly you’re going to be working on during your ...


Track your work

 Track your work
  • Get a monthly calendar.
  • At the top of the calendar note the task or action you’re tracking. 
  • Each morning after you’ve completed the task, put a big X or some kind of mark...


Reward yourself for finishing

The magnitude of the reward isn’t very important; it’s the ritual of the reward that matters. So it’s enough to do something small as long as it signifies that you’ve completed your​ task.



The Brain as a Snowy Hill

The snowy hill represents the brain, the people sledding are like the memories, and the trails left behind are the synapses in the brain.

Think of the brain as a hill covered in snow, ...

Memory Palace/The Method of Loci

A method to enhance memory using visualizations with the use of spatial memory.
  1. Choose a place that you know really well.
  2. Plan the route and pick specific locations in your route.
  3. Decide what you want to memorize
  4. Place an object or two, with a mental image, and place them in your memory palace. Exaggerate your images. For example, use nudity or crazy images forcing it to stick in your mind.
  5. Make the image into a mnemonic


memory device that helps you retain and retrieve information simply with the use of retrieval cues to encode information in the brain.

  1. List the words you want to remember.
  2. Write the initials of each word vertically.
  3. Create a sentence/phrase using the initials.

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Why a Night Routine Matters

A night routine is the things you do immediately prior to going to bed.

Three benefits of having a decent night routine:

  • You’ll have a more restful and higher-quality sleep....

Before You Head Home…

  • Get rid of caffeine after 4:00 pm. Caffeine stays in your system for up to six hours.
  • Stay hydrated. Dehydration can make you feel sluggish and tired when you want to be awake.

  • Decide when the workday ends. Establish a cut off time for work-related emails and phone calls as well.

Immediately After Work…

  • Avoid alcohol. Alcohol may make you drowsy, but the sleep you get won’t be restful. Stop consuming it at least two hours before bed.
  • Have a healthy dinner. 

    When you need a snack closer to bedtime, reach for something light and healthy.

  • Take time to tidy. Waking up in an orderly space will work wonders for your mood.

  • Prepare for tomorrow. 

    When you don’t have a million things to do upon waking, it’s easier to fall asleep.
  • Take time for yourself. Perhaps you watch an episode of your favorite show or play video games.

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17 hours of productivity weekly


Tim Ferriss's tips for productivity

  2. Don't check email in the morning.
  4. Focus is nothing more than eliminating distractions.
  5. Have a personal system; most productive people have a routine.
  6. Define your goals for the day the night before.

Don't check emails in the morning

If you check your emails first thing in the morning, **you're setting yourself up to react.

You're not planning your day and prioritizing, you're giving your best hours to someone else's goals, not yours.