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5-minute morning routines that can make your whole day better

5-minute morning routines that can make your whole day better

5-minute morning routines that can make your whole day better

5-minute morning routines that can make your whole day better

5-minute morning routines that can make your whole day better

2. Think about what would make today great

Canovic recommends another, more prospective exercise: "Write one sentence about something that, if it were to happen, would make you feel like today will be a positive, productive, unique day."

It can be something as simple as going to bed before midnight or spending an hour doing something you love, she says.

Once you figure out exactly what would make you feel happy and accomplished, you can go about making it happen.

5-minute morning routines that can make your whole day better

5-minute morning routines that can make your whole day better

3. Meditate

Science suggests meditation has myriad benefits, from helping you deal with stress and negative emotions, to boosting your memory, to strengthening your immune system.

But meditation doesn't necessarily mean sitting in silence for hours on end. As Ariel Banayan points out, "sitting for five minutes to detach from the thoughts of your mind will have a profound impact on your day."

If you're unsure how to get started, the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center offers some free guided meditations, some of them five minutes or shorter.

5-minute morning routines that can make your whole day better

5-minute morning routines that can make your whole day better

4. Exercise

Minh Killy Le recommends five minutes of exercise right after you wake up. His favorite is planking, which is similar to a push-up.

Research suggests that working out before you eat breakfast can help you lose weight and boost your energy levels — though the workouts in these studies lasted about an hour, or until the participants had burned 400 calories.

Regardless of how long you choose to exercise, be sure to warm up beforehand, since your muscles will likely be stiff from sleep.

5-minute morning routines that can make your whole day better

5-minute morning routines that can make your whole day better

5. Make your bed

Raviteja Chirala says he loves coming home to a neatly made bed.

Meanwhile, journalist Charles Duhigg writes in his book "The Power of Habit" that making your bed can help increase your productivity for the rest of the day. That's because it's a "keystone habit" that can "spark chain reactions that help other good habits take hold."

5-minute morning routines that can make your whole day better

5-minute morning routines that can make your whole day better

6. Prioritize

Chirala also suggests writing a list of things you want to accomplish that day. That way, you'll have a clear set of priorities to guide your work for the next few hours.

Psychologist Travis Bradberry says this kind of careful planning boosts your chances of achieving your goals. He personally likes to set his daily goals after his mindfulness practice.

5-minute morning routines that can make your whole day better

5-minute morning routines that can make your whole day better

7. Visualize the rest of the day

Harrison Thorne recommends a morning visualization routine: "Simply picture your short- and long-term goals, and affirm your abilities to complete these goals."

In his second book, "Smarter Faster Better," Duhigg outlines a similar technique: Tell yourself stories about how the day will unfold.

Duhigg writes about researchers at MIT who studied the most productive people at a recruiting firm and found that they were "obssessive, in fact, about trying to explain the world to themselves and their colleagues as they went about their days." For example, they might ask colleagues to help them imagine how a future conversation or a pitch meeting might go, so that they were more prepared when the events actually happened.

He recommends making a habit of this strategy by spending your morning commute telling yourself a detailed story about the rest of the day.


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