⏱ The Best Minute: Productive mornings, genius, and when it’s time to make a change
💡 1 IDEA FROM ME
A productive day starts with a productive morning. It’s hard to overcome a bad start. Here are some of the ways many people have a bad start to their day:
Waste time on their phone (typically social media + email) as soon as they wake up
Hit the snooze button multiple times (research shows there are negative effects of having alarms going off multiple times to your brain)
Staring into their closet trying to figure out what to wear
Grabbing something quick (often not very healthy) out of the pantry to eat before rushing out the door
Instead, think through your morning routine and have a plan of how you will spend it. Instead of rolling over and scrolling on your phone in bed after the alarm goes off, try:
Deciding the night before what you will wear the next day = no time spent staring at your clothes.
Deciding the night before what you will eat for breakfast, and prep any supplies needed to make it go faster in the morning.
Not bringing your phone into your bedroom at all
Starting your workdays with the same morning schedule. It’s easier to get out of bed if you have a plan of action.
Here is my current morning routine:
I exercise for 15-20 minutes
Read the Bible and pray for 15-20 minutes
Take a shower and get ready for the day (with clothes already picked out)
Listen to a podcast while I make and eat breakfast
Since I have a plan, it is easier to get out of bed. Since I have a plan, it’s easy to avoid scrolling on my phone because I have things I need to do. Make sure you have a plan to start your day well. It’s hard to have a good day if you get off to a bad start.
💬 2 QUOTES FROM OTHERS
I. Amelia Barr on the difference between mediocrity and genius:
“Everything good needs time. Don’t do work in a hurry. Go into details; it pays in every way. Time means power for your work. Mediocrity is always in a rush; but whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing with consideration. For genius is nothing more nor less than doing well what anyone can do badly.”
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II. Warren Buffett on how to know when it’s time to make a change:
“Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks.”
🎙 THIS WEEK ON THE CHURCH LEADERSHIP PODCAST
Zack Morgan on all things church planting, health and success in ministry, common issues facing pastors today, and more.
Click here to listen to the podcast on your favorite app and get the show notes for this episode.
💯 1 Resource I Recommend
The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer
An all-time favorite book for me. In a world where everyone claims to be “busy,” this book will challenge you to reexamine the rhythms of your life. Christian or not, it’s hard to argue Jesus is perhaps the most impactful person in human history. Yet when you read the Gospels, you never get the sense that he was in a hurry.
If you want to live an unhurried, yet still productive life, this book is for you.
🤯 1 INTERESTING FACT
If you ever need to go into hiding, shave your eyebrows.
Researchers at MIT found that faces without eyebrows are like land without landmarks: It's almost impossible to recognize them. In their study, participants were asked to identify photos of celebrities with one catch: Their eyebrows were removed. Interestingly, participants only recognized about 46% of the faces. Even celebrities were just as hard to identify.
Source: Good Housekeeping
🤔 1 QUESTION TO LEAVE YOU WITH
If you don’t want to do it today, you’re still not going to want to do it tomorrow. Why not do it today?
P.S. What screwdriver is it?
