Have Your Most Productive Morning Ever

If you are balancing content creation with little ones or a full-time job, it isn't always easy to find time to be productive. One solution is to start your day a little earlier, giving you time to do what needs to be done, before the daily routine starts.

Plan ahead.

The real secret to a productive morning lies in the planning. Take 10 minutes of an evening to write a simple list, detailing what you need to achieve in your morning work. By planning your tasks the night before you are removing the risk of procrastination in the morning, by spending that little bit too much time on planning what you will do for the day, and somehow getting lost in your Facebook feed…

Get moving.

If you're anything like me it's a real challenge to motivate yourself to get up early to exercise before you start your day. But you only have to do it once to see just how beneficial it can be. Even gentle exercise (think yoga or pilates) will help to boost your productivity—it can boost your concentration and really help you to focus on what needs to be done.

Brain Food

It can be tough to give your task list the attention it needs when your blood sugar is low, so don't forget to have breakfast. This is especially important if you have taken the advice above and spent even a short amount of time exercising. Even light exercise will deplete glucose in your body, making it that little bit tougher to concentrate. Even if you "aren't a breakfast person," it's worth having something, even half a slice of toast will help to boost your brain power for the morning.

Know your timings.

This is the age of short attention spans, and if you are trying to lock yourself away in an office to spend five solid hours writing—you are fighting a losing battle.

The Pomodoro Technique is an amazing technique to help in maximizing your productivity. Without going into too much detail here, the Pomodoro technique aims to focus your brain for short timed intervals, and then take a short break, before coming back to another timed interval, and so on. I have a Pomodoro timer app on my phone that is set to 45 minutes of work and 15 minutes of 'rest'. I find that after a break from my screen, my mind feels as focused as it did at the start of that first session.

Background Noise

For some people a silent room helps them to focus—I am not one of those people. For me, a silent room is a distraction, crazy as that might sound. Growing up in a not so quiet house has meant that without background noise, I feel like something is missing—like I said the silence becomes a distraction. A friend had a similar issue and told me all about an app they used called Focus@Will—full of 'engineered music' designed to engage that part of your brain that needs stimulation, but without distracting you from your work. Sadly it's a paid service, but they do offer a free 30-day trial—perfect if you need a short-term boost.