Creating a morning ritual that WORKS!

I do not claim to have invented any of this, but it is what has worked for me.  Most of what I learned came from Micheal Hyatt's podcast explaining this very topic. (http://michaelhyatt.com/)

For a morning ritual to work, there must first be a nightly ritual.  I cannot get up at 5am if I was up until midnight, because our bodies are not designed to operate on that little sleep.  Getting to bed at 10pm enables me to wake up at 5:00am with 7 hours of sleep, which I personally feel is a good number, and a minimum.  Most people are 8 hour sleepers, and I agree that 8 is preferable, however everybody is different, and I wake up on my own now without an alarm clock most mornings.

I've discussed this with a lot of people, and quite a large majority think I'm crazy for waking  up at 5 o'clock, when in reality there is a significant group of people that wake up before I do, construction workers, hospital workers, etc...  I think 5-6am is a good time to wake up, for me the earlier the better, and the more I can get done.

Moving on, the first thing I do in my morning ritual is to turn the kettle on.  Funny as it sounds, a lot can be done while waiting for the kettle to boil.   Whatever my other goals for the morning are, I appreciate having access to hot water for tea or coffee, for me and for others!

After that, I start to have daily choices.  I'm a neat-freak by nature, so I've been picking a particular room and cleaning it from the time I turn the kettle on until ~7 o'clock.  I will be joining a gym in the next few weeks, so I will be incorporating that into my daily routine.  I'm planning to head to the Gym at 5:30, and be home by 6:30am, giving me ~40 minutes of workout time, 10 minutes each way travel.

At 7o'clock things get serious, now I am starting to prepare for either the day ahead, or get ready to go to work.  I make lunch, eat breafast, etc, all between 7-7:30.  30 minutes should be plenty to throw something together for lunches, and eating breakfast usually takes ~10 minutes.

So my mornings are:

5am - wake up
5:05am - turn kettle on
5:10am - make coffee/tea
5:30am - head to Gym
6:30am - arrive home & tidy household
7am - Prepare lunch & eat breakfast
7:30am - Start work


All of this is easy, sticking with it is the hardest part.  The best and easiest way to get started is to go to bed ridiculously early for a few nights... I'm talking 8:30pm, your body won't allow you to sleep more than what it wants, which is usually 8-10 hours of sleep.  Training your body to operate properly on 7 hours quite often is not an overnight success.  It took me months to get my body alert & ready at 5am... and if I'm up until midnight, I literally throw my morning routine out and just make lunches & breakfast.

I hope this helps somebody, feel free to comment and let me know what you do or don't do in the morning!!