5 Incredible Morning Habits of Super Productive People

Our day's success depends on our morning habits. An incredible and powerful start ensures a productive day. Our morning routine sets the stage for the whole day.

In 1820, an English academic, rhetorician, logician, philosopher, economist, and theologian Richard Whately quoted:

"Lose an hour in the morning, and you will spend all day looking for it."

Productive people seem to be taking this quote very seriously. According to Bussiness Insider, ninety percent of successful people wake up incredibly early in the morning. Not just that, they productively exploit those early hours.

These extra hours with no distractions give them plenty of room for their creative juices to flow. And with time, they mastered the art of using time more efficiently and to a better effect.

Steve Jobs, the then founder, and CEO of Apple used to ask himself a question daily:

"If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?"

This hard-hitting question motivated me a lot in my life too. Honestly, I always answered in negation to the above question and realized that I need to change something. And that something was my morning routine.

I was never an efficient individual but was a curious reader. And that helped me to find my motivation and insights. After reading plenty of books about successful people, I have discovered a secret to maximum productivity. And that are the morning rituals.

Here's what I learned about super efficient, super productive people's morning habits, which we can adopt to improve our productivity

1. They Make their Bed First

Most of us think of it as a trivial task, but the research suggests otherwise.

A socio-economist, Randall Bell, Ph.D., who has been studying the behavior of successful people for over 25 years, once stated in his CNBC interview that "Those who do their chores and keep their living space tidier tend to make more money. And those who make their bed in the morning are up to 206.8 percent more likely to be millionaires."

Isn't that an amazing fact about becoming a millionaire?

Besides, an American Pulitzer-prize winning journalist and author, Charles Duhigg, suggests (in his book Power of Habit) that "making your bed every morning is correlated with better productivity, a greater sense of well-being, and stronger skills at sticking with a budget."

Now that is no longer a secret based on the research survey because making our bed leads to healthy habits like following rules, keeping clean, organizing, planning, budgeting, tracking finances, setting and tracking personal goals, etc.

2. They Ruminate and Wipe off Their Minds to Look Like a Clean Slate

"Exercise, prayer, and meditation are examples of calming rituals. They have been shown to induce a happier mood and provide a positive pathway through life's daily frustrations." - Chuck Norris

Successful people have a lot of ideas in their creative minds. But not all of them are fruitful and worth time investing. So, ruminating helps.

Through different mindful techniques like meditation, yoga, etc., they erase past failures from their minds to focus better. This ritual helps them manage overwhelming fantasies and obstructing past failure memories.

Many best athletes in the world, like Michael Jordan(NBA), Ricky Williams(NFL), Bianca Andreescu(Tennis), Stephen Curry(NBA), etc., have revealed their morning meditative secret for their improved focus and concentration.

Oprah Winfrey has openly stated that daily reflective practice allows her to perform at the highest level. She even has a meditation program with Deepak Chopra.

So, taking cues from here, we must incorporate some mindful activities that help us focus better and perform with better productivity.

3. They Spend their Morning Time With Family

George Bernard Shaw once quoted in 1902:

"A happy family is but an earlier heaven."

Successful people start making their paradise by making their families happy by spending time together. Morning is the only time for them to make the best memories because their dreams and goals consumed the entire day.

Life is not about work or family alone but a balance between them, so super-achievers prioritize family time as a morning ritual. It not only helps in improving the relationships but lives a longer and fuller life.

As part of the morning ritual, Gary Vaynerchuk (CEO of VaynerX group)calls his mother, father, or sister, depending on the last phone call's order.

Besides, Andrew Yang (CEO OF Venture group)shares that he'll check on his wife and son first thing in the morning. If his son is awake, he'll spend time with him before heading to the office, or else he hits the gym.

So, valuing the importance of family time is one of the things to learn from successful people.

4. They Follow the S.A.V.E.R.S Technique

The morning is the most crucial part of our day as it can make or break our day. Super achievers are aware of this fact, and so they exploit it to achieve success by following the SAVERS Technique.

S.A.V.E.R.S stands for:

S: Silence

A: Affirmations

V: Visualizations

E: Exercise

R: Read

S: Scribe

Hal Elrod, an American author, revealed this secret of successful people in his book, "The Miracle Morning."

In the book, Elrod mentioned that successful people spend a minute or two in silence saying a gratitude prayer, followed by affirmations and visualizations, which enriches the mind with peace and power. Next, they exercise for at least thirty minutes, making them physically fit. Lastly, they spend some time reading self-improvement books for positive thoughts and scribe some notes for self-reflection.

Though these habits require immense willpower, creating a mindset first and then following them every morning ensures maximum productivity.

5. They Don't Plan (in the Morning)

All the super-productive people plan their day the previous night. SO that they get going from the moment the alarm goes off.

Benjamin Franklin believed that planning the day in the morning is like wasting the day. So he always planned his day the previous night to get going as soon as he wakes up.

A famous quote by Abraham Lincoln comes to my mind:

"Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe."

So, if we are going to fulfill our dreams tomorrow, we must have the plans ready today.

Fortune Senior Editor Geoff Colvin once said in his interview that "I'm a big believer in to-do lists. I then identify the most important items and force myself to do those first, which is usually hard. Planning out your day the previous night not only helps to reduce the decision-making anxiety the next morning, but it frees the mind from worrying about significant tasks throughout the day."

Final Thoughts

Despite these highly productive habits of successful people we need to imbibe, we must not enforce them. By slowly incorporating these focussed habits, we can step forward towards being more productive and efficient.

Consistency is the key to success, and we must aim to maintain these habits throughout our life.