How I start most days

People have asked me how I start my day and most of my days are very simple unless we are heading out to meet clients or go to a conference. I do like my morning routine, and it has been something that I have been doing for quite a few years now and it has helped me get things achieved most days.

Once I am up and ready to start the day, it’s important that I make my cup of tea which is normally English breakfast tea. I don’t have this everyday and, but we are going to be home, I am going to be starting my day with my 16-ounce cup of tea. Once the tea is made it is off to my desk where I will start the computer and open the documents that I normally use to start my day.

Here is what I will start with each morning when I start the computer:

• Writing outline – word document
• Word count – spreadsheet
• YouTube – Port of Miami Cruise Ship Terminals (BLC Streams)
• Email accounts

These are what I will have open before I start by day and yes having two monitors, but my laptop screen helps me be able to have all these things open and available for me to check things. Now a couple of these things that I open by sound a little different, but they help me with my focus.

• YouTube – Port of Miami Cruise Ship Terminals – this is a live stream of the cruise ships that sail out of Miami, so it is a nice to have a nice relaxing view for my day. This is normally open most of the time as I enjoy just having something to look at and I usually refer to this as my window. Also, the weather is a lot nicer to Miami than it is in Toronto in the middle of the winter.
• Word count – spreadsheet – this is a document where I document the number of words that I write each day and the total word count for each blog that I write. It is for me just a fun way of tracking how the writing is going each day.
• Writing outline – this is the document where I do my journaling and I say it daily so I can see what I was thinking and feeling that day. It is also where the raw blog posts are written so it is fun to see when specific blogs get written.

So, my morning routine is quite simple, with my cup of tea sitting in front of me I start to work on my daily journal and that normally lasts for about the first hour or hour and a half of my day and then after that is when everything else happens. I enjoy having this time to myself and I must admit there are days that most of the writing for the day is completed in this time.

My routine is quite simple, and I love it because it helps me get the focus for the day and then I can move other things forward. Of course, during this time I do quickly check email to see if there is anything that needs my immediate attention otherwise, the emails wait until after I have got my writing done completed. My daily planner is also checked but again it is just to make sure I know what the day ahead looks like.

I think most people have their daily routine and it how they start their day and for me I am happy with my routine and quite often this routine also happens on the weekends, so it is nice to have that consistency. If you have a similar routine, please let me know because it would be interesting to compare them.