Elsewhere: a morning-start poll

Productivity/balance guru Jason Womack, a new acquaintance (real-life, anyway—I've "known" him around the blogosphere for awhile) has a deceptively simple poll up at his blog right now: how do you start your day?

The choices are pretty standard and simple. You know—check inbox; check voicemail; meditate and send greeting cards to five friends, colleagues or loved ones.

Of course that last was not really part of the poll. But someone had done it as a write-in in the comments section, which Jason had designated as the "other" option. And it made me think: how different would my life or my business be if I not only sent out five personal, handwritten notes per day, but did it before I did anything else—if I used it to set the tone for my day?

You can take the poll here, if you're interested. Jason is collecting info to add to one of his seminars, and it will help him out.

But I'm curious now—what things do you all do differently, either to set the tone for your day or to shift your mood to a nicer or more productive one? One of my newer techniques is to make sure my work area is clear between every project I work on during the day; I also started lighting a candle at my workplace to indicate the start of work.

Do you have any rituals you've picked up over the years? How do they help you?

Comments

[Mike Kaselnak]

5 cards is great! I actually had a day end ritual. I sent out 50 handwritten cards a day Monday through Friday. It took me a little over 6 hours a week to write 250 cards. But oh what it did for me. I had been making about $50,000 a year as an independent financial planner for over 10 years. In a desparate attempt to figure out how to break my $50,000 ceiling I looked for a cheap marketing alternative. Handwriting my own cards was it. Two years later I had brought in over $33 million in new assets and breached the $1 million a year in income. Rituals, aren't they great!!

[Colleen Wainwright]

Holy mackerel, Mike! That's an amazing story. I've been dragging my feet about getting personal cards printed up, but that clinches it: next up, me and handwritten notes!

[Christopher Duggan]

I send cards every day and IT WORKS!!!! It strengthens my relationships and makes me and everyone feel good. People remember how you make them feel more than anything.

I send cards right from my computer and Send Out Cards does the rest!! They send a real greeting card with MY HANDWRITING on it in a real envelope with a real stamp. And I never leave the computer. Email me to find out how to send a couple cards for free to give it a try. christopher@thresholdvisions.com

[Dani Nordin]

I have been adjusting my day-begin and day-end ritual for a while now, but basically, it's like this: every morning I get into my office (which, thankfully, now has a reading/thinking/sketching nook), light a candle and some Green Tea incense, and thank whatever powers there be for allowing me to work from home and actually survive; then I spend about half an hour to an hour in my reading nook reading whatever it is I'm reading at the moment, and journaling about whatever I need to journal about; then I'm ready to check e-mail and get to the rest of my day. I'm most productive computer-time wise between about 2 and 6; then I read for a bit more, write a list of tomorrow's to-do's, thank the powers that be again and (hopefully) do some yoga or go for a walk when it's nice.

I'm trying to figure out where I can fit a daily workout now, but I like the overall ritual right now. I've been very productive lately.