Morning Routine 2021 - Realistic + Productive Habits

Today we’re going to discuss something I’ve been asked about constantly: a morning routine for 2021. The biggest thing you're going to get from reading this article is that it's realistic and productive. You can go aimlessly throughout the day, which I've honestly done, or you can take this approach and not work eight hours a day and get more than eight hours worth of production. That’s how you get ahead (AND MAKE MORE MONEY!)

This is what my morning routine looks like:

• 6am Meditation
• 6:15 Journaling (SUPER IMPORTANT)
• 6:45 Exercise
• 7:15 Breakfast 
• 7:30 Clients + Finance

And it all starts with getting up early.

Wake up an hour earlier (consistently)

A lot of people will struggle with this one but waking up earlier gives you time to actually wake up and prepare for the day. I’ve never been a morning person but a consistent morning routine means less stress. It gives you the time to prepare for the day before the chaos begins. 

Ask yourself this question: When do people get into car accidents or have a bad injury?

When they’re RUSHING!

Wake up an hour (or 2) earlier and you’re no longer rushing to start your day. I also highly recommend keeping your phone OFF or not using it for the first hour. This stops the knee jerk reaction of checking email and social media. One message can derail your routine as you rush to start something else… DON’T DO IT!

Instead, try starting with either reading a good book or meditation (more on meditation below). Eating breakfast with your family is another great way to start the day! It helps fuel mental clarity and it's the perfect time to connect with your family / friends before the craziness. I also recommend this because it gets you into relationship building mode. You start asking questions, listening and of course… being patient :)

Challenge: Wake up ONE hour early for an entire week + share the results

Meditation

The typical response to “You should try meditation as part of your morning routine” is I’m not spiritual or don’t believe in it.

YOU MISSED THE POINT!

Meditation is all about gaining mental clarity so that you’re calm + ready to tackle the day. I would say… “that’s it” but it’s critical to being successful. You need to make great decisions, be able to listen, ask good questions and being reactive isn’t good for business (EVER).

My goal when I started was to stop different ideas from jumping into my mind. My mind would constantly start exploring different things at the same time. It was frustrating and hard to focus on any given project. So, I made it my mission to get to absolute zero. Sit there with nothing going through my head and actually relax. It was really TOUGH but very much worth it.

One of my go to YouTube channels is Boho Beautiful Yoga with their Guided Meditations. You can just relax, listen and they have different lengths (5-10 minutes is a great place to start).

If you’re not a fan of YouTube or want a different option Spotify has lots of great options. Try checking out Guided Meditation for Everybody or search Meditation in Genre for more options.

Challenge: Find a guided meditation that’s 5 minutes long and practice for a week + share your experience.

Journaling

Nothing has had a greater impact on my life or income than journaling. It was a POWERFUL game changer. 

I started by writing about my day after a friend recommended it. It quickly started to change and made me very aware of what I was doing (and what wasn’t working). That realization was a little frustrating… you couldn’t argue with it. YOU WROTE IT.

I started to write to get clear on my priorities and thoughts. People started to notice that I changed the way I spoke. I became very clear on my beliefs and found it a lot easier to communicate different complex topics. That fueled me to keep going. I started to capture my goals (and priorities) to keep focused but actually held myself accountable. I would follow up with what I wrote to see if I actually finished my priority tasks.

One thing I learned is that we promise to do TOO MUCH in a day. Whether you say it’s because we’re too nice or it’s our ambition… you need to say no more than you say yes OR you’ll never have time for anything.

Adding gratitude to my journals had a bizarre impact. I started to notice more positive things going on and gravitated towards them (and those people). I started to change the people I surrounded myself with and even how I thought about myself… CRAZY!

The effect was even more powerful when combined with meditation.

BONUS: This is a great exercise to find relevant and useful content. Those questions you ask or the problems you overcome have the ability to transform someone’s life… YOU NEED TO SHARE THAT!

Challenge: Start by writing down 1-2 priorities for the day, a paragraph about what happened yesterday and 2-3 things you’re grateful for today. Try it for a week + share your experience.

Prioritization

If you don’t prioritize… you’ll be busy. Most people would say that’s good but is it?

I spent years prospecting for leads to only find out it was a waste of time. I got A LOT of leads. Way too many at one point. Those leads turned out to be low quality leads and even if they closed… they weren’t profitable and they had unrealistic expectations. Journaling and prioritization made this SUPER CLEAR.

Get in the habit of asking yourself every morning (or night just before you finish work):

What are the top 1-2 things I need to do today to make today successful?

Plan out your entire day before you start. You don’t need exact times and activities but you need to schedule blocks of times to do repetitive tasks. Most people struggle with this. A great place to start is write down everything you do in a day. Keep a separate journal for a week. WRITE DOWN EVERYTHING… well maybe not the bathroom breaks!

Sort through this rather large list (it’s usually a lot more than you expect) and put every task into 1 of 3 categories: Do, Outsource or Remove.

Only put the tasks that provide a real benefit at the end of the day. They move the dial forward to make sure you’re investing in your success. This could be prospecting, content creation, sales meetings, product development or gathering testimonials. You’ll take these core activities and pre-schedule them every day. I use recurring meetings in Google Calendar and often move them around to adjust for the upcoming day BUT I never DELETE THEM!

Outsourcing tasks that you’re not great at and that take up too much of your time is essential. This could be administrative, video editing, buying groceries or other simple tasks. You’ll find that you can actually automate a good chunk of these tasks for cheap. CRM’s allow you to capture leads, key information and correspondence automatically. That’s a great investment. DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP!

Your yes will only hold value if you say no. There will be quite a few things on your list that have no real benefit to customers or you. We do them because we ASSUME we have to. It’s a beautiful thing when you free up hours a day with this step. Most of these activities also create the most stress!

Challenge: Do the above exercise for a week + share your results (this one will surprise you!)

Exercise

This is a common one you hear people talk about so I won’t go into too much detail. Exercise gives you a boost of energy and wakes you up better than coffee ever can.The biggest benefit I gained was less stress & anxiety. It really doesn’t need to be a crazy workout either. I found 15-30 minutes was great.

If you want to dive deeper into exercise. Check out My Morning Routine - 3 Things I've Learned by Mike Macchiarelli

Challenge: Exercise at the same time every day (for a week) and share your results!

BONUS Create content

I’ll save this for another article but if you’re not creating content on a regular basis… you’re working too hard! Message me if you would like to be part of my 30 Day Digital Challenge and I would be happy to send it to you.

Conclusion

If you want to be more productive, by working less hours, but actually getting the same, if not better results, try waking up one hour earlier every day for a week.

Just try it. 

When you wake up, do not touch your phone, get out of bed and meditate. I would recommend starting with five to 10 minutes. Follow that with 10-20 minutes of journaling, focusing on your priorities for the day. Include gratitude into journaling to get yourself in the right mindset, do some light exercise to get you moving instead of reaching for the coffee right away, then eat breakfast.

Prioritize by starting with the most important one or two things before you do anything else. That’s going to have a huge impact on your success. 

Why wouldn't you want to be more productive? Because even though it might boost your ego to be busy, it doesn't affect your paycheck.

Comment below with the one challenge you’re going to work on in the next week