Productivity + Mondays

Here we are. Day #2 of writing my daily personal blog. 9am and we are making it happen.

Tuesdays are usually my most productive days.

I think a big part is that this is the day our weekly newsletter for Uptrends goes out — every Tuesday morning. Which means I am usually forced to get up between 6 and 8 to write it.

And once I’m up there’s momentum. Having a *reason* to get moving right away is the key, from there the rest of the day flows somewhat naturally.

Mondays have probably been my least productive days historically. For a few reasons: recovering from the weekend (sometimes hungover), sparce schedule (usually not many meetings scheduled), and a lot to get done (a bit overwhelming).

So that usually results in me taking longer to get out of bed and get started with my day. Which compounds into feeling like a piece of shit for not starting early enough, which can de-rail an entire day if you’re not careful.

But recently I’ve figured out a few tricks to hack my way into being productive on Mondays (and any other day that feels like a ‘Monday’)

Here are my best hacks to cure Monday laziness:

1. Go for a walk right away in the morning

2. Drinks a coffee (hot or cold you choose)

3. Listen to something or take an early call

Trust me when I say I have fighting myself to get productive and avoid laziness for decades now. And these are the the 3 things that seems to be the most important common denominators.

Here’s why I think they work:

First, it’s all about mornings. Every habit book will tell you this: Atomic Habits, The Miracle Morning, etc. — if you can win the morning you win the day, and conversely if you waste your morning the rest of your day will be an up-hill battle

Second, find the easiest possible excuse to accomplish SOMETHING as early as possible.

For me this is typically just getting out of the damn house (I work from home). So doing a little walk is nice.

Plus morning sunshine is fricken everything — listen to any episode of Huberman and you’ll learn this.

Third, coffee. This is pretty obvious; caffeine is king and yes I may be addicted but show me a coffee addict who ISNT productive as f*ck.

A coffee right away in the morning is ideal. You get into trouble when you drink coffee like a degen through the late part of the day. One cup a day right away should be all you need.

Fourth, listen/talk as soon as possible. This is another Huberman learning. Either a nice podcast (for me usually Pardon My Take or Tim Ferriss) or a morning standup with my team is plenty to get my brain-language connection moving.

Combine all of these things — morning walk, coffee, listen — and you’re golden.

The best possible scenario is walking TO THE COFFEE SHOP and getting some work done. At least for me as a remote person.

Which makes me think… maybe there is something to having a morning commute. It also seems to accomplish all of these things.

And maybe that’s why all these big companies want their employees to come back to the office… maybe they aren’t more productive for having been in the office… maybe it’s because they are just fricken doing the commute there in the mornings which in turn provides all the essentials you need to have a killer-productive day.

Food for thought. Anyways back to work!