I wake up around 5:00 a.m. every morning and spend the first 10-20 minutes of my day going through a checklist of tasks I call my Morning Preview. It is not as miraculous as The Miracle Morning Routine, but I find it helps me focus and start the day off right.
This has been my routine for almost all of 2018.
Every morning a Trello card is automatically duplicated and appears at the top of my “DOING” list. The checklists looks like this:
- Reading & Reflection (Scripture) – I read the Scripture readings for daily Mass and write down a passage that stands out to me the most from the day’s Gospel. Catholics celebrate Mass every day with a set of readings that cycle through every three years. I essentially get to read the entire Bible every three years this way. I do the reading while my coffee is brewing, then I head downstairs to my office.
- Review Daily Vision and Goals – I read through two Evernote notes: “2018 Goals” and “2018 Mission, Vision, and Long-term Goals” to remind myself of my priorities.
- Check The Religion Teacher Content Calendar – I make sure the projects I am working on keep me on schedule for my plan for this month and the rest of the year. Each month I pick one project to create for The Religion Teacher, one writing project, one speaking project, and one thing to launch.
- Establish/Preview MITs for the Day – An MIT is “Most Important Task.” I write down one, most important task for my work, my work at Ave Maria Press, and home at the top of a 3×5 notepad that I keep at my desk or in my pocket. I try to complete the MITs first in my day or as early as possible.
- Set/Preview Time Blocks for the Day – I schedule everything I am going to work on in a Google calendar I call “Personal Productivity” in a process called “time blocking.” This may be the most effective thing I do because I know exactly what I can accomplish in a given day before it starts.
- Update One Sentence Summary Journal – I summarize in one sentence what I did during the previous day.
- Daily Blog – I used to write Morning Pages, but now I write and publish blog posts of lessons I am learning here at jareddees.com/log. I spend about 10-20 minutes writing these posts and I haven’t missed a day in six months.
