Each day is the same. Wake up, work, hang with your family, do a fun activity or embark on your responsibilities as an adult, go to bed, then do it all again. With limited hours in a day, and a seemingly neverending list of tasks to accomplish, knowing HOW to have a productive day is a key aspect to ensuring you’re making the most of your days.

Below we are sharing our list of the top 3 things to do in the morning to have a productive day. This list isn’t revolutionary, meaning you’ve probably seen similar items make similar lists, but this is what actually works for us. These are the things we do every day to be sure we are being the most productive we can be!

1 – Start Your Day With You Time
That’s right– as it turns out, jumping on your phone first thing in the morning to check emails or social media isn’t actually as productive as you think it is. Take time to drink a big glass of water, get in some light exercise or stretching (think of taking your dog for a walk or do some yoga in bed) for even just 10 minutes, get yourself ready for the day (get in the shower, get dressed) and THEN grab your phone or laptop for screen time around the time you have breakfast. Dedicating even half an hour to yourself in the morning gets your brain working and processing correctly before bombarding your brain with messages of all the things you have to do and the rants of other people. Your mind can easily be influenced in the morning so set your mind up right by spending time with yourself doing mindful practices to make your day positive.

2 – Eat (a Healthy) Breakfast
Studies actually prove that eating breakfast decreases your chance of obesity and helps you to have stable blood-sugar levels. Those two things are just for people who eat ANY kind of breakfast. If you eat a healthy breakfast you give yourself more energy, you improve your short-term memory and you’re actually able to concentrate more intently for long periods of time. Turns out breakfast really is the most important meal of the day!

3 – Set Priorities BEFORE Checking Your Email
This one might be the hardest of the three! Checking your email and social media is a standard part of most peoples morning routines but it isn’t actually helpful for your productivity. The best way to start your day is to set your priorities BEFORE you check your email. If you’re running your own company, you’ll generally have an idea of the tasks you need to get done before checking your email or social media to see what additional tasks have popped up overnight. Set 2-3 priorities AND get at least one of them done BEFORE you check your email. Then you can rest assured that at least one important task is done before the ‘fires of the day’ start rolling in. This ensures your to-do list doesn’t keep piling up and keeps you feeling like you’re making headway each day by completing at least one task before anything else comes up.

Being productive is a key aspect of the laptop lifestyle. It’s cool you can work from anywhere that has wifi, but if you can’t be productive while working from anywhere, you’ll be left with unhappy clients which, inevitably, turns into no clients. Try implementing even just ONE of these three things to do in the morning and see how productive you feel. We can almost guarantee you’ll be itching to put the other two into your morning routine.