Want to be More Productive? Make Better Use of Your Mornings

Ah, we know the situation all too well. Get a cup of coffee, check emails, flip over to Facebook, back to emails, next thing you know it's noon. Well, according to Laura Vanderkam, author of What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast: A Short Guide to Making Over Your Mornings – and Life, the morning is the quintessential time to be productive. She explained to The New York Post, "First, people are less likely to interrupt you. Second, research into willpower finds that your ability to have self-discipline is strongest in the morning after a good night’s sleep. It gets depleted over the course of the day as we make decisions and as we deal with annoying colleagues and bickering children." So, what can you do to think big before getting pulled into a meeting that wasn't on your calendar? Think big. And by that we mean strategically. She told the newspaper, "Mornings are a good time to figure out what you’d like your career to look like in the future. What are the big problems facing your organization? What are some ways that you could move your career and your organization forward?" Let's chew on this for a second: Once you get involved with conference calls, conversations, new deadlines, you get pulled into in-the-moment thinking instead of strategic thinking. It sounds like in order to be strategic, you need to get focused to prepare yourself for the brainstorming session. Vanderkam added, "If you’re planning on doing strategic thinking, it helps to have identified what problems you’d like to think about ahead of time and gather the materials you need. Keep track of how many days you’re doing it. Keep track of how you’re feeling. And feel free to reward yourself for a while if you’re trying to build a habit."

Fishbowl

Want to be More Productive? Make Better Use of Your Mornings

Vicki Salemi

About

Subscriptions

Events

Publications

WORK SMARTER - LEARN, GROW AND BE INSPIRED.

Subscribe today!

Vicki Salemi