10 Things to Start the Day with OTHER Than News
Multiple posts address the need to NOT pick up your phone first thing when you wake up. Good advice: avoid email, avoid social media, avoid the news. Here are things I like to start the day with. Maybe it will help you think of an alternative. Nature abhors a vacuum. You can't just NOT pick up the phone, just like you can't NOT think of a pink elephant. Want to get rid of the pink elephant? Think about a green monkey instead. Here are some "green monkeys" to help you with that pink elephant phone problem.
1. Comics
I have a listing of favorite online comics bookmarked. Reading them before I deal with anything substantive makes everything else go better. You can just go somewhere like GoComics and keep a listing.
It happens that this is today's Pearls Before Swine. Maybe Pastis is looking over my shoulder. Hi, Stephan!
2. Private email
I have an email address I only share with family and friends. That one is safe to check in the morning. I'll leave my "business" email address for later. If I see a little number beside the inbox for this one, I will look to see who it's from and decide whether to open it. This one is strictly guarded so that only people on a list can even get through. Anything else is guaranteed to be spam and is marked accordingly.
3. NotePD
Getting the creative juice flowing is a good way to start the day.
4. Reading fiction
Unless you work for a publisher, reading fiction has nothing to do with your job. Another great way to slide into the day with your creativity juice squeezed fresh.
5. Reading non-fiction (not job- or business-related)
I have plenty of professional material to read. This is not that. Reading about something I find interesting that has absolutely nothing to do with making money helps me later on to make money. But that's not why I do it. It's just a great way of setting my mind for the day.
6. Meditation
Specifically, mindfulness meditation of some sort. Lots of different ways to do this. Information about it is all over the place. Just 10 minutes before tackling the rest of the day makes a difference.
7. Listening to music
Make a playlist on Pandora or Spotify or whatever, and order it so that it smoothly slides you into your next steps.
8. Playing music
Pick up the ukulele. Play the harmonica. Play the piano. Strum the guitar. You don't have to be good. You just have to enjoy it for this to work.
9. Video game
Careful with this one. Depending on how you play, a video game can leave you frantic and ramped up. Play something a little mindless, preferably not one that has a countdown of some sort. I sometimes open up Minecraft in creative mode and build something.
10. Coffee and nothing
This doesn't preclude eating something else with it, but the idea is do something easy, like make coffee, then go sit on the front porch or in the dining room and slowly sip, doing nothing else. Yeah, this could technically be meditation. Whatever. The nothing part of it is important, i.e., you're not even meditating.
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