5 Things To Never, Ever, Do In The Morning

5 things to never, ever do in the morning! Practicing these habits as part of your morning routine might be destroying your productivity, health and happiness!

There’s something about having a fresh start, a small reset every 24 hours. Mornings can be magical. You can use them to start new healthy habits, to work on your passion projects or to have some time for yourself.

Many of us don’t appreciate that new beginning. We hit snooze when the alarm goes off, complain we’re tired and we have to go to work, we rush, drink coffee and eat some empty calories.

I know I was that way a few years, maybe even a year ago. Then I decided to start waking up earlier and to get my health, well-being and life together. Slowly, not overnight, it all started to change. Things I wished for so many years to happen, slowly actually started happening.

But aside from knowing what to do in the morning, I had to set some hard rules about what to never do at the start of the day.

Through much failure, I discovered 5 things that are never, ever worth doing in the early morning. These things are killing your productivity, your health and happiness. And they’re sneaky!

I will admit, I am not 100% perfect at avoiding them. I’m almost always aware I shouldn’t be doing this right now in the early hours, but I sometimes slip and it all snowballs. But it definitely happens rarely now and that’s how I’ve been able to make the changes I wanted. Do your best, even if it’s 80% of the time. Try to avoid doing these 5 things as much as you can early in the day.

5 Things To Never Do In The Morning

1. Hit Snooze

I think I’ve talked about this here. Sleeping in 10-minute intervals is not restful and it’s actually stressing you out and making you exhausted.

Whenever that alarm goes off, wake up, stay in bed a little bit if you need to and then get up and get ready.

2. Check email or social media

If I had to name only one thing to never do in the morning, this would be it. Never, ever, check email or social media in the morning, especially right after you wake up.

It seems to have this special way of sucking out your time, your energy and your confidence. And it snowballs so quickly. It leaves you feeling unproductive and miserable.

Focus on you and the things you want to do, not the things others want you to do like answering their emails or liking their posts on Instagram.

3. Start with your to-do list

Now don’t get me wrong, I love working on my blog and my other projects in the morning. It’s so quiet and it’s pretty much the only time I have to do it. But don’t do it first thing in the morning. It could easily stress you out.

First, do something good just for you – like stretching, exercise, getting dressed, journaling and then get to work.

And for sure don’t start with unimportant, easy to check off tasks on your to-do list. Start with the things that can potentially change your life.

4. Eat unhealthy breakfast and have coffee

I like doughnuts and coffee (especially cappuccino) as much as anyone else. But they don’t make me the person I want to be.

Whenever I start my day with a crappy breakfast, I start feeling sluggish, confused and like I can’t finish anything.

During the 1st hour of the day, I also try to not drink coffee. It’s hard because it’s one of the things that can get me out of bed even at 5 am, but I survive nevertheless. And I’m so much more clear and productive.

There are other reasons to not drink coffee right after you wake up, especially because your cortisol (the stress hormone) levels are up in the morning anyway, so you don’t want to fuel that even more.

But I find I feel so much more alert and happy just drinking water and getting rehydrated from the night.

5. Make too many decisions

Have a morning routine in place, so you don’t waste too much time and energy on small decisions early during the day.

The night before, or on Sunday, decide what you’ll wear, which workout you’ll do, which project you’ll work on and what you’re going to eat.

Deciding on these things beforehand will increase your productivity and lead to better quality decisions (that are actually important!) later in the day. Suffering from decision fatigue at 1 pm is a real thing.

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Now I want to know: Are you doing these things in the morning or not? If you do have any tips, please share them in the comments!

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