I've been working on getting a better morning routine. My mornings tend to become compressed because I get to bed late (see: Revenge Bedtime Procrastination) so when it's time for me to wake up I'm not ready to actually wake up (see also: chemotherapy and tiredness thereof). So I've found myself drifting away from my ideal morning.

Ideal morning:

• Wake up refreshed
• Get showered, dressed
• Get a coffee
• Meditate
• Do some pre-work on my Most Important Tasks (designs, programming, important stuff for work, etc.)
• Read email, start the day

My usual morning

• Wake up tired because I got to bed late and Pixel needed to be shown that "yes, you have some god damn food in your dish" several times throughout the night.
• Get showered, dressed
• Open up email and blast myself with what happened overnight
• Open up social media and try to catch up with what happened over the past 4-6 hours
• Eventually fire up the work machines and start the day

Which of the above seems like a better way to star the morning?

I'll admit that opening up the email is a very strong urge, especially since I work remote and that's how I learn about what is expected of me throughout the day, but blasting myself with that first-thing (along with whatever else showed up) is sub-optimal. Better to have a "win" under my belt first before blasting myself with log messages, notes from folks, and whatever else is in there. The spam can wait.

This morning I had a pretty decent morning. I got up and actually started the day without opening the computer (Shock! Awe!). Will keep practicing with this to figure out how to best incorporate this into my daily routines.