Redefining Mornings: One Change for a More Productive Start
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Kelly: [00:00:00] Hello, welcome to the productivity genius podcast. I'm your host, Kelly Fifield. And in this episode, we're talking about amazing morning routines. Now I have a whole list of all of my episodes and all the ones I'm going to record. And I put this one on here as just one episode because of course, morning routines can be really powerful and really amazing.
So I wanted to do a podcast on it. But as I started preparing for this, This was going to be just like the world's longest podcast episode ever, because there's so much that can go into an amazing morning. However, if I go into a bazillion minute long podcast episode, what are the chances that you're actually going to do any of those things, right?
So what I decided to do instead. Instead is focus on just one thing that you can implement in your morning that will make a dramatic difference. So that's what we're going to do before we do that, though. I also decided to break this morning routine idea into two pieces because that's how I think of my morning.
[00:01:00] Personally, I think of my morning as like that getting ready time from the time I like open my eyes. I move on to the next part of my day, which for me is work. So this episode is just going to focus on that very earliest part of your day, not as we transition into work time, but just that very earliest part of your day, how to make that the most effective.
Okay, so first thing we want to do, step one is to get clear on what we want from our morning. For me, I want three things out of that earliest part of my day. First and foremost, I want it to be clear. calm. Second, I want my morning to be simple. And then third, most important, I want it to be effective. In other words, I want to have everything done that I want to get done in the morning and I want all of that to be done on time.
So I want it to be calm. I want it to be simple and I want it to be effective. Those are the things that I value in That part of my morning. Now, if you hear that and you're like, [00:02:00] well, my morning is not like that at all. I've got a bazillion kids in my house or whatever's going on. Totally fine. That doesn't have to be your goals for your morning.
Who cares what mine are, whatever your goals are. But certainly don't change your goals based on what is going on right now. If you want your morning to be calm, simple, and effective, you totally can. It's not like we're asking some crazy thing. You can get there even if your morning isn't like that at all.
But just be clear with what would you like it to be? That's the first thing that I think is most important is that we know what we would like our morning to be. Okay, so that's step one, clarifying your morning. What would you like it to be? Step two, is to identify the biggest problem right now in your morning routine.
What's causing you the biggest problems? What's the most negative thing going on right now? Okay, so we've defined what we want the morning to be like. We've defined the biggest problem. Before we move on from there, let's just notice that if you were to solve that biggest problem of your morning, [00:03:00] like maybe the biggest problem of your morning is you're running late, so it's really stressful that you're rushing around and...
and just really stressed out first thing in the morning if that's the biggest problem Solving that would be amazing, right? So we want to really be excited about solving this problem Even if you currently don't think it's possible to solve it Just make sure you're picking one that would really make a big change so once you define that problem now, we want to come up with solutions Now, you might be thinking, well, there is no solution.
If there were, since it's the biggest problem, I would have solved it. But most likely you haven't taken time yet, like really dedicated time to just focus on this one thing. And we want to just focus on this one thing now for these few minutes while you're listening. So let's just come up with one possible solution, two possible solutions.
In fact, I think you can ask yourself, what are five ways? That I could solve this problem. Here's some questions you might want to ask yourself, like what [00:04:00] would the easiest way to solve this? How would someone else solve it? Maybe someone you respect or someone with really different ideas than you.
What would be the creative solution here?
How could someone else in the house help me solve this problem? Sometimes I need to think too, when I have a problem like this,
A lot of times problems like this, involve other people, right? Like maybe it's that you're all running late in the morning, the whole family's running late and that's really stressful. And that involves getting like, say the kids ready too. when I have problems that incorporate working with other people, sometimes I think that.
I don't want to hurt their feelings or I don't want to ask too much of them. If this is that type of problem, you probably then also want to ask yourself,How will solving this problem help all of us? How would this be so awesome for everyone to have this problem solved? How would this make everyone's morning better?
And even if it only makes [00:05:00] your morning better, that's okay too.
It doesn't have to benefit everyone else. If it's causing problems for you, that's a good enough reason to fix this problem.
Now, some of the solutions you come up with, you might think, Oh, that's not gonna work. Or, that would be too hard. just keep asking yourself to come up with more and more solutions. Maybe ask chat GPT, that thing comes back with the craziest solutions to things. Maybe ask other people, but my guess is the most beautiful answer lives in your brain.
So just keep asking yourself, what do I think the solution is here? Now once you pick a solution, so maybe you want to pick the one that seems the easiest or the most powerful or the most likely to work, then the next step is to Fully commit. Make this your one focus in the morning until this new way of being is just a habit.
This is going to take most likely at least a full month of consistently following through and having this be the new routine.[00:06:00] Now that may sound like a lot of work, however, remember we've selected the biggest problem that you have. So if it takes over a month of commitment. to solve your biggest morning problem.
I think that's going to be worth it. If it's not, then either your morning is so freaking spectacular already that you don't have very big problems, or you didn't pick the biggest problem. You may not have because you were thinking, well, that one's go back, revisit that unsolvable problem. For sure you can come up with a solution.
Once you've committed, and I mean really committed, this was like one of Scott and my superpowers as a parent, I think when we would have something going on with the kids, no matter what it was, like maybe they weren't eating, like they weren't eating foods. You know, like, you know, when the kids are little, like they don't want to try anything.
Like maybe that was the problem we were trying to tackle. We would make that our one. Focus was like we're all in on this for the next however long it takes until we break Um, do we break our [00:07:00] kids and get them eating the things? Whatever it was, we would focus really on one thing. Of course, we would be taking care of all the other things, but it was our main focus.
And doing that was so useful in raising the kids, and it's so useful in so many areas. If you commit to one thing at a time. It seems a little painful because we want to solve all the things all at once, but it's just so much less likely that you will solve the problems if you're focusing on too many of them.
So just commit. This is the one focus I'm going to have for the mornings. Then you're going to pick that first strategy of the solutions you came up with. Pick one to try. And think of what might get in the way for implementing that strategy, and then come up with a plan for when those things come in the way.
For sure, obstacles are going to come up, so let's anticipate as many of them as we can. And prepare for that in advance, like maybe you have to get up extra early, maybe 20 [00:08:00] minutes earlier until this habit is cemented. Maybe you have to get yourself completely ready and then be all in on this one thing.
Maybe that's one way that you can. Make this more likely to work another thing you will likely want to do if this does involve anyone else in the house is Communicate with everyone and let them know what you're doing and why it's important
if you're really clear about why this is Important to you with the people that you love Although It might not go perfectly beautifully But it's more likely to go smoothly If they understand why you're doing this, if you just all of a sudden make this change, it is less likely to be well received than if there's a little bit of warning.
And then the last thing you need to do to solve that one big problem is to make sure you don't let up too early. A lot of times we start to see progress, things get better, and then we... Believe that it's just going to stay that way, but whatever the old habit was in [00:09:00] the morning is the one that is more permanent and as soon as you let up, it's likely going to come back in.
So you want to make sure that you don't give up too early that you stick with this being your one focus Until you're confident that this is the new norm once that's the case Then you can pick the next biggest problem with the morning And since you started with the biggest one, hopefully this next one is going to be easier and easier to answer to fix.
And so it's almost like exponential improvement. You knock down this huge one in the beginning. It's like exponential decay. Imagining that the asymptote, if you're a math person, right, is like beautiful, calm, awesome morning. So it's like that first domino you knock down was a huge one. And then we just have to fix a few smaller ones.
Now, in the future, to get to that beautiful morning.
Definitely avoid the temptation to try to fix more than one thing at a time. It would be great to get them all done at one time, but it just doesn't [00:10:00] work that way. If we dilute our focus, it's just much less likely that we're going to achieve what we want to achieve.
And if I'm being honest, this is not going to be the most fun thing to do, right? Because you're dealing with the biggest obstacle in your morning, but the payoff is going to be so good.
Think of how great it would be for everyone in your house if your morning was calm and organized and simple. it may be a little bit difficult there for a month, maybe even while you're coming up with a new system, but that will lead you into a lifetime of this better morning, totally worth it.
And speaking of focusing on one thing to work on, That is the topic for next week's episode, Your One Thing. A few years ago, I decided on one thing to focus on, and it completely changed my life.
I'll tell you what that one thing was, and we'll explore what you think your one thing should be. [00:11:00] Until then, have an amazing week.
