The Most Important Hour of Your Day

The alarm clock goes off interrupting a perfectly good dream. Time to wake up already? It feels like you just went to bed, what the heck? You’ve got a busy day so you get up anyway.

You sit on the edge of your bed thinking about everything you have to do and it makes you want to go back to sleep. You get ready and go downstairs. There’s no time for breakfast and you’ll grab some fast-food on the way to work.

While you’re eating your breakfast burrito when you have to stop suddenly in traffic and now the burrito is all over your lap. JUST GREAT!

You know how it goes; the day didn’t start well which means it can only go downhill. The rest of the day is filled with irritating people and situations. Why didn’t you just go back to bed?

Your morning may not have exactly gone like this but you know how it goes when you don’t get a good start to the day. Whether or not you realize it, how you spend that first hour of the day will affect the rest of your day. The first hour is vitally important.

I wrote a guest post for Michael Hyatt about this subject but I want to refresh what it said and hopefully this will help you plan a better first hour of your day. Here are a few tips for a good first hour:

What you should do

1. Start with a glass of water. Normally all we’re thinking about is what we have to do that day. What we fail to realize is that if we want to get things done we have to have energy and peak performance from our bodies. A glass of water right away in the morning kick-starts your body and flushes out toxins. It’s a small boost to your metabolism. It also fills your stomach and gives you energy!

2. Exercise if you can. The second best thing you can do for your body is get the blood flowing through exercise. There are so many benefits and many great articles that will tell you why. Exercise in the morning gives you energy. It teaches you discipline if you do it regularly. It will give you something to look forward to in the morning versus rolling out of bed. That quiet time where you can work out the stress, plan out the day, and meditate will do wonders for your day.

3. Stay away from email and social media. Tell me if this sounds familiar: You wake up, roll over, and get your phone. You start checking email and social media notifications. Is that how you start your day? You need your brain to wake up and having it jump all over the place right away isn’t good. There will be plenty of time during the day for email and social media. That time right away in the morning should be peaceful, quiet, and soothing. Bright lights and the craziness of the Internet isn’t soothing.

To have an even better start

There are two things you can do to make your first hour even better:

1. Get things prepared the night before. Right before you go to bed set yourself up for the next day. Get your clothes ready and put them in a spot where you can grab them in the morning and move. If you make your own lunch have it ready in the fridge. Do as much prep work as possible to eliminate a hectic morning routine.

2. Get enough sleep. You have to get a good amount of rest, you know this. What that amount is—that’s up to you. For the twelve years while I delivered bread I was waking up as early as nine p.m. and three a.m. at the latest. I would get between two to four hours of sleep. Do I need to tell you how rough the first hour of the day was for me? When I got home I wouldn’t make it if I didn’t take a nap. The problem was the nap would cut into whatever time I wanted to write, do activities with my family, or any projects I wanted to do. Your body needs enough sleep for you to function properly all day. It’s just not natural to not get enough sleep.

More than likely you have a day job and are chasing a dream on the side. If that’s the case you need as much energy and time as possible. You have to get home from work and hustle for your dream. You’ll never do that if you don’t have a good day.

This week be sure to start your day off right. Take it one day at a time and create habits that will help your dream become a reality.

How do you normally start your day?