Kim Gaskill uses her dogs' morning routine as a jumping-off point to argue that shaking up your first hour of the day boosts productivity. Small changes to how you start can shift your whole day.
It's a new day. I'm Kim Gaskill and this is the Daily Spark. Are you getting overly comfortable in your morning routine? Is it time to shake it up a little bit? I saw some posts yesterday on morning routines and driving hard in the morning. And are you that person? And you know, I did the My One Thing push for about a year. Had a lot of people following me and connecting with me on what I had coined My One Thing, the, the thing that I knew I needed to do every day for myself in the morning and get it out of the way so that I had a more productive day. And so things flowed better for me. That was my one thing. Well, everybody started identifying what their one thing was. And this morning I'm watching the dogs. They have their little morning routine. They jump down off the bed. I can hear them upstairs jump down onto the, the hardwood floor. Their little nails hit the floor and they come trotting down the stairs, sometimes one at a time, sometimes all three at once. And then they hop back here to the back sunroom and wait at the patio door for somebody to let them out and do their business out in the yard. And this morning, as always, they hop down, they come downstairs, I let them outside. And when they come back in, they usually want a treat. They find their spots on the respective couches. They, they each have their own respective couch that they have designated their dog bed, and they curl up and get comfortable and go right back to sleep. And I saw one of them in the front room as I wheeled myself around. And, you know, it's harder for me to, to get around in the mornings, and I'm off my, my routine and not being productive in the morning like I like to be. And knock things out of the way because I've had quite a change in what my daily routine is. I'm getting back to normal slowly, but it's, it's taken its toll. And as I watch them, I'm thinking, Onyx is all curled up already asleep on a couch, got her favorite little pillow all fluffed up. And I'm thinking, I'm doing that. I'm, I'm like getting comfortable in the morning, being lazy, not getting anything done, not being productive because I've been sitting around so long, it's starting to be comfortable now. I've got to kick myself in the rear and get out of that comfort zone. I need to start mixing it up in the morning and doing some different activities to get myself out of that lazy routine of just getting up, making my coffee, you know, having my breakfast, kind of sitting around, not really doing much. That is not good for me. And I know that's not good for me. And I'm feeling that, that restlessness because I know I'm— there's something I'm not doing. So my challenge for you today is look at what you're doing for the first hour or two in the morning. Are there things that you could mix up a little bit, change what you're doing and get out of your comfort zone? See if it changes how your day flows. See if it changes how your productivity level increases. You'll never know until you mix it up. Are you getting too comfortable in the routine that you have in the morning? And is it time for a little change? You can find me everywhere. Connect with me in the socials. E-C-O-T-E-K. That's Ecotec everywhere. And you can find me again tomorrow here for another Daily Spark.
