Peace of Mind Organizing

Worth repeating (again): Using my early-morning time

13 August 2019

I originally ran this post in 2016, but I wanted to run it again because just yesterday on our podcast my co-host Shannon Wilkinson and I were talking about setting yourself for success. That’s what this three-year-old blog post is all about! If you’re interested in hearing us talk about that topic, the episode will drop on Thursday, August 15. Go to the Getting to Good Enough website (or wherever you get your podcasts) that day or after to give it a listen.

I’m a morning person. I know that I’m most productive in the morning. Especially first thing in the morning. My brain is turned on and I can be pretty focused when everyone else in the house is asleep. (And by everyone else, I mean my husband and dog.)

I’ve learned that if I want to get something done I should do it during this precious early-morning time. For me, this is especially true of blogging. It’s easier for me to blog first thing in the morning than later in the day. I have trouble sitting down and focusing on blogging in the afternoon or evening. So I know that if I want to blog consistently, I am best off doing it in the morning.

Recently, I’ve turned that early-morning focus to doing genealogy research. (I blogged about this very thing on Organize Your Family History recently.) I had not been taking the time to do genealogy research, which was really disappointing me. Now that I’m doing it first thing, I’m really enjoying it and making progress. Of course that makes blogging the second thing I do in the morning, but that’s working out too.

I started to think about the things I can do to make it easier for me to do important things first thing, even on days where I have early client appointments. I’d prefer not to have to get up earlier, so I try to do routine things the night before instead of taking precious morning-brain time in the morning. These things include:

• Loading my car with supplies
• Deciding what I’m going to wear and even putting out the clothes
• Making lunch or gathering snacks
• Clearing off my desk so it’s easy for me to get right to work
• Making a short task list for the next day so that I’m reminded of what I want to get done first thing (instead of mindlessly going to email or Facebook)

Just doing these easy things the afternoon or evening before can allow me to harness the power of my early-morning brain. If you’re a morning person and you have something you’re having trouble getting done, you might give it a try.

If you’re an evening person—which is okay too, of course—you might try switching this up for your schedule. If you know your peak time, work around that. If you’re on your game at 9 pm try to make sure the mindless before-bed stuff is done so that you can really get into your flow at 9 and nothing gets in your way.

Is there something you’ve been wanting to accomplish regularly that keeps going undone? Try doing it before everything else.

Tagged with: getting to good enough, productivity, time management, worth repeating

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