Morning Routines

My cell phone's suggested reads the past few days have included links to articles on Morning Routines that lead to accomplished days.  I could use some accomplished days.  Some come from psychologists or other academics who study this.  Others are summaries from already successful people who convey their morning activities to admiring interviewers.  Expanding to a Google Search, oodles of these routines appear.  If there are a lot of solutions, probably none of them are any good.

A few suggestions appear repetitively, some of which I do, some I haven't.  Most recommend getting up a little earlier than what your body would do on its own and avoid the snooze alarm.  They all recommend a big glass of water before any coffee.  Going outside appears on a lot of these lists.  As does having a plan for the day composed the previous night.

Tried drinking the water.  Not successful.  Just made a k-cup of Martinson's coffee.  Went outside to retrieve the newspaper from the driveway.  Out of bed time has always been contentious.  My sleep tracker has helped.  When the music comes on I am up.  While I set my wrist alarm for 6:30AM, my internal chemistry puts me asleep at that time after some wakefulness the previous hour.  I suppose I could just do it and form a new habit, which I have done before, but the sleep tracker only delays that by about fifteen minutes and I arise.  Dental hygiene next.  Then downstairs to make coffee, retrieve newspaper so my wife does not have to, wash dishes which has a way of relaxing me, and add water to the chia herb pots if they seem dry.  When my smartphone is at the bedside I check email, otherwise I wait until in My Space with coffee and laptop.  Medicines to the left of the laptop.  Daily activity list to the right.  Then I'm ready to go.  Start with blog entry.  Then decide the must-do's and what would get procrastinated in the absence of targeted focus.

And some days turn out productively gratifying, while others disappoint.  My guess is that these experts are a bit like self-appointed financial gurus who really don't beat the market.  And what works for a CEO may not be transferable to me.