A Life-Changing Early Morning Routine

"If you deliberately plan to be less than you are capable of being, then I must warn you that you'll be unhappy for the rest of your lives." – Abraham Maslow

A Life-Changing Early Morning Routine   By Mark Ford Editor’s note: Leading up to next week’s release of Early to Rise Editor Craig Ballantyne’s new book, The Perfect Day Formula, we’ll be sharing with you insights from some of ETR’s most influential and successful achievers in the coming days. All of these essays echo the wisdom of the advice and guidance Craig shares in this powerful new book. Today’s message from Mark Ford explains how revamping your mornings can change your life. Next week, you’ll be able to get a copy of The Perfect Day Formula where you can find out exactly how to structure your mornings and change your life to put yourself on the path to more Perfect Days in 2016. When it comes to personal productivity, we all have the chance to have good days or bad days. Good days are those that leave you feeling good because you have accomplished your most important tasks. Bad days are those that leave you feeling bad because you have failed to do anything to advance your most important goals. If you want to have a better life, you must fill it with good days. The best way to do that is to organize your day according to your personal priorities — doing the most important things first. It’s easy to do. Yet most people don’t. Eighty percent of the people I know — and I’m including all the intelligent and hardworking people I work with — do exactly the opposite. They organize their days around urgencies and emergencies. Taking care of last-minute issues that should have been dealt with earlier. Or doing tasks that help other people achieve their goals while ignoring their own. Don't miss these tools keeping you…  HEALTHY How to Lose 25 Pounds Without Diets or Exercise  WEALTHY How to Get Rich in Tech, Guaranteed  WISE This is Killing Your Focus Doing first things first. It is a very simple discipline. Yet its transformative power is immense. It can change your life — literally overnight. It changed my life. Several times, in fact. I’ve used this amazing technique to write six books, produce a record, and script and direct a feature-length film. I used it again last year to write 350 poems — one a day, after I began on January 15. And I am using it this year to get that book of poems published and to write six other books (five business books under the Michael Masterson pen name, and a novel with my personal byline). MaryEllen Tribby is using this technique right now to write her first book on marketing (which John Wiley & Sons will be publishing at the end of this year). It is the single best technique I know for change. And it’s the fastest and easiest way to turn your life around if you are not happy with the way it’s been going so far. Doing first things first. Is that what you do? Here’s what I do: I get up early – never after 6:30 a.m. I get to work early – never later than 7:30 a.m. I spend my first hour doing a task that advances my most important goal. If I’m going strong, I spend the next hour doing the same thing. If not, I switch to a task that advances my second-most-important goal. I spend my third hour on another priority. Only after four hours of doing important work do I allow myself to deal with less important work and other people’s urgencies. By the time most people start wandering into the office – between 8:30 and 9:00 – I’ve done at least an hour and sometimes two hours of work that is helping me achieve my important goals. Goals that correspond to my core values. Goals that will immensely improve my life. That’s how to begin a very good day! I do this five days a week. And on weekends, I find at least two more hours each day to devote to my top priority. In a year, this averages to about 600 hours. Six hundred hours may not sound like much, but it is.