Plan A: Getting the Most From Your Morning
There’s no point in waking up early if you’re not going to squeeze a hell of a lot of productivity out of it. If you’re not going to focus & get things done, then go back to sleep. (Actually, I’m kidding. Don’t do that. Read the rest of this instead).
A powerful strategy to get maximum results from your morning is really pretty simple … plan it in detail. Otherwise you end up with “Plan B”:
Plan B: Wake up & get some stuff done.
As you can see, Plan B pretty much sucks. So let’s look at a sample Plan A:
5:30-6:00 – Get up, shower fast, eat breakfast while reviewing goals for day
6:00-6:15 – Study AdWords optimization techniques
6:15-7:00 – Put what I’ve just learned into practice
7:15-7:45 – Write today’s blog entry
7:45 – Get ready and head out to work.
Not rocket science. But still, almost nobody does this. They make a to-do list, maybe, but they don’t attach specific times to them. They don’t set time limits that will put the pressure on them to focus, not get distracted, and above all, produce something.
Repeat after me: I must produce something every day.
If you don’t, then you’re spinning your wheels and wasting your time. You’re hurting your ability to focus.
If this sounds annoying, if it seems a little anal to hammer down the exact times you’re going to produce the exact things, then by all means, don’t try this. But then honestly ask yourself if you’re accomplishing as much as you want to.
If you do want to accomplish more, you’ve got to put the pressure on yourself and you’ve got to set yourself up to win when it comes to focus.
So give this a try (and by ‘try’, I mean make it part of your routine forever). You’ll thank yourself for it.
- Dave
