3 Habits That Can Transform You From A Night Owl To A Morning Lark

• Post by: Muhammad Nauman Shahid
• July 5, 2021
• No Comment

You can enhance your work efficiency with these habits.

When you examine the daily habits of the world’s most successful and influential people, you’ll notice that they all share one common trait: a highly planned schedule. The schedule includes a well-thought-out morning routine.

Since I moved to Singapore in 2017, I feel as though I spent a lot of time speaking, sharing, and writing about my sleeping habits and daytime schedules. To be honest, I’ve been attempting to break my inverted sleep cycle of working at night and sleeping during the day. I even visited a doctor frequently to rule out any psychiatric factors that might be interfering with my sleeping cycles. However, the doctor revealed to me that my internal biological clock is programmed to function better at night than during the day. Not to mention that many successful and intelligent people throughout history were night owls. Who knows, perhaps I am following in their footsteps. 

Indeed, I believe it is not my body’s fault that it has adapted to an inverted sleep cycle. Rather than that, it is the effect of the places where I spent my life. For example, I lived in countries near the north pole, such as Finland, Norway, and Russia, where convincing one’s body that it is night or day is challenging, as the sun shines even at 2 a.m. Nonetheless, the established perception that I am living life as a night owl has compelled me to experiment with my sleep patterns to adapt to morning larks. Therefore, I’m fascinated by morning routines recently. I’ve read a plethora of articles and watched many YouTube videos on morning routines. I renew my personal morning routine every few weeks to ensure it continues to meet my current requirements and goals, and I believe that everyone can benefit from doing the same. While some believe that morning routine are a waste of time, I think the reverse is true. Streamlining my morning routine increases my efficiency, productivity, and saves me hours each week.

Even if you lack a set morning routine, try one of these three habits that might work for you. Then if you continue to doubt the efficacy of a well-scheduled morning routine, you can share your ideas (I dare you).

Here are the methods I follow for my morning routine.

1. Eat the frog

Sounds insane? Right! But believe me, it is not quite as strange as it sounds. The metaphor “eat the frog” was popularized by Brian Tracy. He explains the term’s origin and meaning as follows:

If the first thing you do in the morning is to eat a live frog, you can go about your day knowing it is probably the worst thing that will happen to you all day. Your “frog” is your biggest, most critical task, the one about which you are most likely to procrastinate if you do nothing.

I’ve been eating the live frog every morning since my elementary school days when I had a set morning routine. My father, a military officer at the time, enforced rigorous discipline about eating the frog. In our house, there used to be a whiteboard hanging on the living room’s wall where my younger brother and I were required every morning to write down our daily tasks in order of their importance and then update their status in the evening. Since then, eating live frogs every morning has proven quite helpful for two reasons:

• The human mind is the freshest right away after you wake up. Thus, listing your most critical tasks in order of importance mimics the act of putting them down on a blank canvas in your mind. This provides an aspect of motivation to finish them so that the canvas looks appealing and elegant at the end of the day.
• By accomplishing the most important task first, everything else appears to be easy and simple in contrast.

The key point here is to tackle your most difficult problem first, so that it may be resolved. This way, you may continue with your day without constantly thinking about it.

2. Morning exercise or walk

I cannot emphasize this point enough, and I’m sure you might be sick of hearing it every now and then. I frequently discuss the importance of regular morning exercise or walk because I have personally witnessed the wonderful benefits of it. A few include the following:

• Excellent mood
• Enhanced motivation
• Self-esteem boost
• Greater clarity of thoughts
• Increased efficiency

All of these beneficial side effects help me stay on top of and maximize my daily work, which results in weekly time savings. You may discover that morning exercise or a walk makes you more efficient and saves a lot of time. While many people prefer to listen to natural sounds in their surroundings during their morning walk, others may wish to add a taste of music to increase their motivation. Yihong Lan has elaborated on the possibility that music might improve your ability to perform everyday tasks in this article. 

3. Make the bed

Normally, when I wake up, I make my bed. Yes! While I am generally an organized person, this is not the primary reason I make my bed every morning. There are two significant benefits to making your bed when you wake up. First, doing so increases daily motivation and productivity. Indeed, according to a new poll by Best Mattress Brand, people who spend a few extra minutes smoothing the bedsheet, comforter back, and repositioning pillows, enjoy more productive lives. Second, making my bed is an observable signal to my brain that “I am up and ready to tackle the day.” The brain then prevents me to mess up my freshly made bed by sleeping on it for an extra hour, procrastinate with work, or take a long nap.

There is nothing inherently wrong with a power nap. However, if I’ve had enough sleep and have a lot of work to do, sleeping in late will just disrupt my routine and cause me to go behind schedule.

The point here is to avoid hitting snooze or sleeping again unless it is absolutely necessary. Generally, if you have a 9 to 5 schedule, this is not an issue. However, if you are a freelancer or self-employed, it may be quite beneficial to establish and adhere to a morning routine. Making your bed may be included in that process, allowing you to be more effective and save time every week.

Final thoughts

Your morning routine will not be identical to mine (and should not be). It should be tailored to your specific needs and objectives in order to maximize “your” productivity. Nowadays, coronavirus procrastination is inhibiting the productivity of many people. To address this concern, I demonstrated how the Eisenhower matrix can help you boost your productivity. While I enjoy drawing inspiration from the morning routines of other people, I ultimately adhere to the habits that enable me to work most efficiently. Developing consistent habits enables more accomplishments and ultimately saves’ hours every week.