7 Morning Hacks to Jumpstart Your Day

7 Morning Hacks² to Jumpstart Your Day

 I’ll be the first to admit that I’m really not a morning person.

I’ve tried to get myself going in the early hours of the morning, but I’ve always been more of a night owl³ – my creative juices seem to flow better in the later hours. So I’d be the last person to suggest that you need to force yourself out of bed before your body and mind are really ready to do so.

But when you do get up, you may find that you’re pressed for time and have fallen behind the rest of the crowd in what you need to get done during the day. A slow start to your day won’t help anyone, let alone you.

Just because you’re not up as the sun rises doesn’t mean that you can’t put yourself in a position to make sure that the day ahead will be a productive one. You need to put some things into play so that you can make the most of your waking hours.

On that note, here are 10 “morning hacks” to jumpstart your day:

1. Wash your face right after getting up.

Rather than make your way to the kitchen for that cup of coffee, head to the bathroom and splash some cold water on your face. Once the alarm goes off, head out of bed and straight to the sink. The refreshing⁴ feeling you’ll get from the water hitting your face will act as a trigger that it’s time for your body to get moving. Think of it as having a pail of water thrown on you while you’re still in bed – but with a little less wetness and cleanup required.

2. Program your coffeemaker in advance.

This one may not sit well with the coffee connoisseurs⁵ out there, but the smell of fresh brewed⁶ coffee sends a signal to your brain that says, “It’s time to get up”. If you’ve got a coffeemaker with pre-programming features then you’re all set. Just set it to start each day at the time you know you’ll want to get up (remember that you don’t have to get up earlier, be reasonable with your demands on yourself), prepare it the night before, and you’ll be good to go when morning comes.

3. Put your alarm clock out of reach.

I keep my alarm clock across the room so that I have to actually get out of bed to turn it off. It’s also close enough to my bedroom door so that I can head straight to the bathroom to give myself my morning splash. I also use an alarm clock app on my iPhone that takes some effort to shut off (such as Mission Alarm Clock; there’s also Challenging Alarm Clock for Android users), meaning I actually have to be awake in order to stop it from going off.

Oh, and by using my iPhone I’ve got an alarm clock that is great for travel and I’m less likely to abuse the device – it is a pretty expensive alarm clock, after all.

4. Go outside.

I step outside with my coffee and sit on my deck whenever the weather permits. It connects me with the outside world right off the bat and puts me in a place where I’m not jumping online right away. I’m enjoying the day as it arrives (for me, anyway) and sipping⁸ a fine cup of joe while doing so. Fresh air is good at any time of day, and getting it early on is never a bad thing.

5. Plan your day the night before.

Despite being done at night — the night before — this is most certainly a morning hack¹. I give my task manager a good review before hitting the sack for the night. Because my late-night habits often put me at performance par⁷ with those who get up a couple of hours before I do, I’m rarely behind in my productivity. The key is to “time shift” so that you’re ahead of the early risers the night before. By planning your day in advance (and even doing some of the tasks the night before), you can go to bed at ease.

6. Mix it up.

I do the things above as part of my wake-up routine, mixing it up from time to time but never straying from these things. For example, I like to make freshly-ground coffee, so I do that instead of pre-programming it for myself. But I prepare my wife’s coffee for her the night before and still get the benefits of the aroma⁹ in the morning. I don’t go outside every day – sometimes the weather doesn’t cooperate – but I definitely look outside every day when I get up. I’ve positioned my sitting chair in my bedroom in such a way that I can enjoy my coffee while looking out the sliding glass doors every morning. A routine is beneficial, but don’t make it essential. You need to have some flexibility¹⁰ built in, otherwise when things you can’t control cause your routine to go off the rails you’ll be more inclined to start sluggishly¹¹.

7. Recognize your best workflow patterns.

It’s a commonly held belief by those who dwell in the productivity realm that email shouldn’t be the first thing you bury yourself in when you start your day. I agree, but if you’re having trouble jumpstarting your day you need to figure out if that’s why or if it’s something else that needs to be adjusted. Perhaps by setting yourself up the night before, you feel that email can be your first target. Go with that until it doesn’t work for you. Maybe, like me, the first thing you check is your RSS feeds so that you can have something to spark your day. It could be that you want to dive right into the heavy stuff while your energy is high. Take the time to really reflect on your workflow practices and patterns and honestly ask yourself what isn’t working and what is. Leave the stuff that is alone, monitor the stuff that sits somewhere in between until you see how it reacts to the changes that you must make to the stuff that isn’t working. Wholesale¹² changes rarely lead to results; you often abandon the changes altogether when you try that. Tweaks, however, can lead to results because they’re not as painful to adopt. So rather than going ahead and “changing”, try “tweaking” instead.

What tips do you use to jumpstart your day? Leave your suggestions in the comments.

1 hack   

n.劈，砍，出租马车；v.劈，砍，干咳

参考例句：

• He made a hack at the log.他朝圆木上砍了一下。
• Early settlers had to hack out a clearing in the forest where they could grow crops.早期移民不得不在森林里劈出空地种庄稼。

2 hacks   

黑客

参考例句：

• But there are hacks who take advantage of people like Teddy. 但有些无赖会占类似泰迪的人的便宜。 来自电影对白
• I want those two hacks back here, right now. 我要那两个雇工回到这儿，现在就回。 来自互联网

3 owl   

n.猫头鹰，枭

参考例句：

• Her new glasses make her look like an owl.她的新眼镜让她看上去像只猫头鹰。
• I'm a night owl and seldom go to bed until after midnight.我睡得很晚，经常半夜后才睡觉。

4 refreshing   

adj.使精神振作的，使人清爽的，使人喜欢的

参考例句：

• I find it'so refreshing to work with young people in this department.我发现和这一部门的青年一起工作令人精神振奋。
• The water was cold and wonderfully refreshing.水很涼，特别解乏提神。

5 connoisseurs   

n.鉴赏家，鉴定家，行家( connoisseur的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Let us go, before we offend the connoisseurs. 咱们走吧，免得我们惹恼了收藏家。 来自辞典例句
• The connoisseurs often associate it with a blackcurrant flavor. 葡萄酒鉴赏家们通常会将它跟黑醋栗口味联系起来。 来自互联网

6 brewed   

调制( brew的过去式和过去分词 )； 酝酿； 沏（茶）； 煮（咖啡）

参考例句：

• The beer is brewed in the Czech Republic. 这种啤酒是在捷克共和国酿造的。
• The boy brewed a cup of coffee for his mother. 这男孩给他妈妈冲了一杯咖啡。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 par   

n.标准，票面价值，平均数量；adj.票面的，平常的，标准的

参考例句：

• Sales of nylon have been below par in recent years.近年来尼龙织品的销售额一直不及以往。
• I don't think his ability is on a par with yours.我认为他的能力不能与你的能力相媲美。

8 sipping   

v.小口喝，呷，抿( sip的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• She sat in the sun, idly sipping a cool drink. 她坐在阳光下懒洋洋地抿着冷饮。
• She sat there, sipping at her tea. 她坐在那儿抿着茶。

9 aroma   

n.香气，芬芳，芳香

参考例句：

• The whole house was filled with the aroma of coffee.满屋子都是咖啡的香味。
• The air was heavy with the aroma of the paddy fields.稻花飘香。

10 flexibility   

n.柔韧性，弹性，（光的）折射性，灵活性

参考例句：

• Her great strength lies in her flexibility.她的优势在于她灵活变通。
• The flexibility of a man's muscles will lessen as he becomes old.人老了肌肉的柔韧性将降低。

11 sluggishly   

adv.懒惰地；缓慢地

参考例句：

• The river is silted up and the water flows sluggishly. 河道淤塞，水流迟滞。
• Loaded with 870 gallons of gasoline and 40 gallons of oil, the ship moved sluggishly. 飞机载着八百七十加仑汽油和四十加仑机油，缓慢地前进了。 来自英汉非文学 - 百科语料821

12 wholesale   

n.批发；adv.以批发方式；vt.批发，成批出售

参考例句：

• The retail dealer buys at wholesale and sells at retail.零售商批发购进货物，以零售价卖出。
• Such shoes usually wholesale for much less.这种鞋批发出售通常要便宜得多。