15 Ways to Prepare for a Great Day Tomorrow

You know, Naval Ravikant says that peace and happiness are skills. There might be a genetic range. Sure. But you can train yourself to be better at being happy. A great day is full of productivity and happiness, and there are small but incredibly effective tools you can use to help this training. And like all training out there, it requires continuous practice. If you fall off the horse, you have to get right back on to it.

You might know some of these suggestions already, but hey, a reminder never hurts, right? So write them down and put them into practice and start your training. Here are 15 ways to prepare for a great day tomorrow.

First up, do a closing shift in your home the night before in the restaurant world. A closing shift is for the servers and waiters who work late at night and make sure that everything is cleaned and set up for the morning. It's not a major clean, but it's tidying your space. Put things away, wipe down the counters, straighten up the living room area. It only takes about 20 minutes and it will completely change your morning mindset.

Pack whatever you need the night before. That panic that comes with you rushing because you realized you have way more to do than you thought, and now you're running late. Well, that releases cortisol, the stress hormone. It messes up your entire day because now you're anxious and on edge. Cortisol is the hormone our body releases when we feel like we need to run or fight to save ourselves. It's highly charged and we definitely don't need to be welcoming it first thing in the morning.

Eat a good meal the night before. We often hear about the importance of eating a good breakfast, which is absolutely true. But your meal the night before plays a major role in your energy levels and mood for the next morning. Too heavy, spicy or high-fat foods are more likely to lead to indigestion, which disrupts your sleep. On the other hand, foods that contain nutrients like magnesium and tryptophan can help you to sleep better. When you sleep better, your body gets time to regenerate properly and you wake up feeling more refreshed and energetic.

Put the phone away long before you go to bed. You guys know this one? It's on every self-help advice column about feeling better and sleeping better. And if it didn't help in a major way, we wouldn't include it here. But look, we're tech people, okay? We work on our phones and our laptops all the time. Everyone knows that comfort and relief of grabbing your phone just as you get into bed. It's kind of like a smoker taking their first drag after a long day. And like smoking, it is so bad for you. Never mind the blue light.

The information overload, the scrolling, the bombardment with different colors, images, and stories. It's all going to trick your brain into believing it's daytime again. It's not fair. Your brain is tired. Okay, so let it rest.

Write a five task to-do list the night before. Since you're not going to have your phone with you, you need something else to keep you occupied in bed. Writing a short priority focus list will help you. The trick is to keep it to only five tasks. If you start writing everything you need to do for the next day, you're going to get overwhelmed.

The big to-do list, well, that can live in a different place. This one is for the five most important things you have to do the next day. Divide them up between morning, afternoon, and evening and make sure they're not all work-related and not all personal life related.

Get what's bothering you out of your mind. It's horrible to wake up in the morning feeling overwhelmed right out of the gate. Whether it's stress about money, guilt about something you said to someone that you've been overthinking about, or shame because you didn't do everything you needed to do the day before. You need to get all of those anxious and negative thoughts out of your mind and onto some paper.

Studies have shown that when you write something down, the stress it poses and the space it takes up in your mind diminishes. You're not forgetting the problem. No, you're just storing it in another data center like a computer memory. Your brain becomes overwhelmed, thinking the same thoughts over and over. Simply writing it all down will clear up some of that space. If you don't like writing, you could spend five or ten minutes typing out the things that are bothering you and then come up with an idea about how you can solve it.

If you can actually solve it, if it's a new problem, even a brain dump into a voice memo to yourself would work really well here. Don't let one misstep throw you off, or even two missteps, for that matter. It's an awesome feeling when you're in the rhythm of a good day. You've set yourself up the night before.

You've woken up early. You're feeling rested. And then as you're getting into the car or off the train, you realize, crap, you forgot your lunch or your gym clothes, and now your whole day is thrown off. So often we throw in the towel on the perfect routine that we've crafted because we made one mistake. This type of expectation of perfection is unfair and unreasonable.

Of course, you're going to mess up sometimes. Find a solution to get on with it. Don't dwell. Make sure your first meal has protein and greens. Whatever your first meal is, make sure it contains protein and greens. You want fuel. You want energy. You want something that's not going to weigh you down.

Protein is going to give you all of that. Carbs are great and delicious, but for your first meal of the day, you need a stable source of energy. Protein takes longer to digest, which maintains your blood sugar levels so you don't have a spike of energy and then a crash. It's also a great source of energy for your brain, so you're sharper and more focused.

Make morning reading your best friend. Ten minutes in the morning is all you need. Reading provides this slow, smooth transition from the dreaming world to the waking world. It wakes up your brain, imagination, and creativity, and distracts you from any pressures or problems you might be facing. Reading the news doesn't count, though, just because it's going to launch you straight into the information vortex.

Reading is more calming and you can go at your own pace. If you commute, this is the perfect time to do it. Podcasts have been really popular on commutes, but they also bombard you with information too. Reading doesn't do that because you are staying on one story. Audiobooks are great for this too.

Get seven minutes of exercise in the morning. More would definitely be ideal, but if that's all you can do, then experts say that seven minutes of morning exercise is enough to enhance your focus and boost your mental clarity. Physical activity increases the blood flow to your brain, which sharpens your concentration. It also releases endorphins, which will lift your mood naturally. Seven minutes is all you need to have a huge boost in your productivity and emotions for the day.

Step into a good day circle. In behavioral therapy, psychologists will advise an activity where you have two circles on the floor, right where you get out of bed each morning. One circle represents a good day, and the other one represents a not good day. Now, obviously, we're going to choose the good day circle, right?

So some people might see the not good day circle as redundant. But it's not about your options; it's about your ultimate decision. Purposefully stepping into the good day circle sends an early message to your mind that that's what you're going to focus on for the day.

Greet the people that you see around you. Nearly every study on happiness and productivity puts connection with people and socialization as the number one determiner of your mood. We are social creatures, so positive interactions can have a great effect on how we feel for the day. You don't have to continue the conversation.

In fact, don't do that because everyone else is rushing about their day, thinking about their own things and probably doesn't want to engage in an early morning conversation. All you have to do is say hello with a smile. That's it. Notice how you feel when they greet you back. It's like a little spike of happiness.

Talk to yourself out loud about what you have to do. You have your priority do list and your main to-do list. And now you're going to give those tools another boost by actually talking to yourself about what you have to do for the day. Have a conversation with yourself so you understand that your goals are achievable. It also helps you to visualize how your day is going to go, so you're less likely to be stressed and forget things, and you'll feel more focused.

This gives you the chance to ace that meeting at work, to be present at that dinner with your friend, and to do some self-care—a win-win-win. Create a morning playlist and listen to a few things. Have the power to boost your mood as quickly and effectively as good music.

So take some time later today to create a morning playlist for yourself. Put your feel-good tunes on there, the ones that amp you up and motivate you. Make sure there's enough songs so you're not listening to the same ones on repeat, and do some dancing while you're at it. You're already up and about, so add some spicy moves to the mix too.

And last but certainly not least, make your damn bed. A clear bed equals a clear mind. Having that semblance of order and achievement the moment your feet touch the ground sets you up for a great day. It shouldn't even be something that's on your list, really. It should be something that's already a part of your daily movement.

It sounds simple, but it's incredibly effective. Now you're like, so this research doesn't like your day starts with whatever inputs you decide to invite in. Good habits invite better habits, which leads to better days. Now we know that you've got some great suggestions too, so drop them in the comments.

What do you do to prepare for a great day? Share with the community, my friend. We'll see you back here next time. Until then, take care.