There are the set of habits that I follow during my work day, you can cultivate the same to start a productive day.
A good habit is defined as A behavior that is beneficial to one's physical or mental health, often linked to high level of discipline and self-control. The following habits are easy to follow and inculcate in your busy day.
1) Waking Up early | You Snooze- You Lose
A good night's sleep is key to waking up naturally with no help of an alarm clock. My goal is to get at least 8 hrs of sleep. If you are a person like me, who can not wake up in the morning without an alarm clock then set the timer at a time that you know for sure you'll be out of bed when it goes off. As hitting the snooze button will be the first thing that we procrastinate that day.
A Study suggests that when we sleep after hitting the snooze button we enter in to a new sleeping cycle which makes you even more crankier when that alarm goes off in the next 10 mins thus waking you up half way. This makes us grumpy if not for the whole day but at least a few hours of the day.
2) Drink Water
The first thing as soon as I wake up and do is to drink water. I always have a bottle of water at my nightstand. Drinking water on an empty stomach has many beneficial effects.
It helps in waking up your gut for another enticing day. Water helps in kick starting the metabolism and fills the stomach so I don't reach out for a cup of coffee.
Sometimes I add flavors to the water to make it more interesting. Usually its just apple cider vinegar and honey or lemon and honey.
3) Making Bed
I can understand when people ask me: why make bed when you are gonna sleep in within a few hours. I agree to their wonderment. But trust me, a well made bed is so relaxing and peaceful to look at. It gives the whole room a fresh look. I always make it a point to make my bed before doing other chores.
4) Soaking Up the Sun
The first thing I do in the morning is to open the curtain and let the sun shine inside our bedroom as we tend to spend the entire night inside the house and under man-made lights.
I head to the balcony where I have my warm water and soak up the sun to experience warmth of the sun and to get Vitamin D's.
5) Exercise
I work out in the morning for 2 main reasons 1) as it wakes up my muscles and get the heart pumping with more blood and energy. I try to walk at least for half an hour and do easy home workouts (strength training or yoga)
2) I really can not give any convincing lame excuse not to
6) Eat Breakfast
Since my childhood my parents always made sure that we finish our breakfast before heading to school. I remember my dad telling my sister "If you don't finish your breakfast I'm not dropping you at school, on empty stomach you won't able to concentrate!" His disciplining made me take breakfast seriously. I can skip lunch or dinner or even both but my day doesn't feel complete without breakfast.
As it is the most important meal of the day that gives you energy to work your way through the daily chores.
Even if you're in a hurry prepare something the night before and have it on the go. I personally like overnight oats, breakfast muffins, smoothie packs (where I put together the required ingredients in a Ziploc bag and keep it in the refrigerator so in the morning all you have to do is dump the contents in your blender and blend) or any seasonal fruit so that i have homemade food than eating at near by restaurant..
7) Plan Your Day
As a working woman, to strike a balance between work-life balance was a herculean task. I always carried my work to home to finish before deadline, after exhausting all my energy in work i didn't had any left to do household chores. Most days I don't hire help unless it is absolutely necessary, and also my husband helps me with chores around house and always helps me in kitchen. The problem?- I was stressing about the non-urgent job that was unfinished. To reduce the anxiety I started planning my day. As the days progressed, I was less anxious, less stressed and never brought work home. I found planning and organizing peaceful.
I make a to-do list based on urgency by which the task has to completed. If I don't find the time to complete a non-urgent job i carry it over to the next day and get it done.
These are the habits that make my morning routine. This is how i spend my morning on a typical work day. I did not include the mandatory morning chores like bathing and cooking in routine.
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