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Hi everyone, and welcome back to happy hour.欢迎回到酒馆

Before we get into today's topic, let me ask you a question, when did you get up today, or better yet, when do you usually get up in the morning? There are usually 2 types of people, the first type we call them morning person. If you are a morning person, you will have no problem getting up early in the morning, and you wake up feeling bright and breezy, ready to start your day; But then you have the other type, for them, waking up is a tremendous task, and even when they eventually get up, they feel irritated and grumpy, or you might say they woke up on the wrong side of the bed.

英语里说起床气可以说to wake up on the wrong side of the bed.

Now whether you are a morning person or not, we all have to start our day at some point; and we all seem to start it differently. Some of us would first get out our phone to check social media and news; Some will start their morning exercises; Others might jump into a quick shower or rush around preparing breakfast for their family. There are a million different ways a morning could go, but I think most of us will agree that good morning routine sets a great start for a productive day.

So in today's Happy Hour, let's talk about morning routine.

今天的酒馆里我们就来聊聊一日之计在于晨。

Well there's probably not an ideal morning routine that fits everyone. If you read about some of the morning routines of successful and highly productive people, you might find something in common. A lot of them would say your first work of the day should be something meaningful and significant. One of the famous albeit a bit strange quotes from Mark Twain about morning routine says eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.

马克吐温就曾经说过一句有点奇葩的名言，他说早上第一件事儿，首先你要生吞一只青蛙，剩下这一天的事儿都不是事儿了。

It might sound a bit weird and disgusting, but here eating a live frog is obviously not the real frog. This quote can be understood as do your biggest tasks first, so when you start with a big item, a big project or the frog, the rest of your day will look pretty great and easy by comparison.

Now the reason why many would suggest that the first task we do in the morning should be a task that might take a lot of focus and determination to accomplish. The reason is we are limited with our self control.

现在我们经常说自律或者自控能力self control, 但实际上我们大多数人的自控能力都非常有限，the longer the day goes on, the more fatigue your self control experiences. This could explain that usually ourselves control is the weakest late at night, prompting us to eat very unhealthy snacks or do other things that we might regret the next morning.

Now because of this, it is important to make those early morning hours count. But how do you identify the frog?

但究竟怎么样找出应该最先做的事呢？

I like the very famous importance urgent quadrants, 可能很多人都听过重要紧急的四象限。

So if we separate all of our tasks into urgent, not urgent, important, not important, then we have four categories. Urgent and important紧急且重要,for example, a report that is due today. Not urgent, but important不紧急但很重要,for example, learning a new skill. Urgent but not important紧急但不重要, for example, dealing with some household chores. Not urgent and not important既不紧急也不重要,watching videos on your phone would be in this quadrant. After you tagged everything with these four labels.

把你所有的事情都放到这4个象限里之后，then with urgent and important things, you will do them, and prioritize them. They can be your big task, your live frog. With things that are not urgent but important you can set some time to plan them. When it comes to things that are urgent but not important, try to delicate them. And for the things that are neither urgent nor important, try to eliminate them during your work hours.

In a speech gave at Stanford back in 2005, Steve Jobs talked about the motivational tactic that he used to start each and every day. He said every morning I looked in a mirror and asked myself, if today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I'm about to do today?

乔布斯就提到过，每天早上会对着镜子问自己，如果今天是我生命的最后一天，我还会做原本计划要做的这些事儿吗？

and whenever the answer has been no for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. So far we are talking about the general framework.

Now let's look at some detailed tips on how to find your best morning routine, how to get your day started both mentally and physically. Let's start with mentally. In order to create a positive mental space in the morning, we can first of all set goals. Benjamin Franklin famously started his day with a question: what good shall I do this day?

美国的开国元勋也是大科学家富兰克林，也会以what good shall I do this day来开启他的一天, ask yourself what is the most important goal I want to achieve today? Just a couple of goals would be enough because this will give you something to focus on. And by the end of the day, this will also give you sense of achievement.

Once you have your goals, now it's time to make a to-do-list. Personally, I love the to-do-list. To me, there's nothing more satisfying than writing down all of these things, all of these tasks that you need to do prioritize them, and then tick them off one by one. And if you have time, you can even make this to do list the night before make it a tomorrow list. This means when you wake up, you already have a very clear idea of your priorities and what to do, and it'll help you stay on top of your work.

If you know you've got a hectic day ahead, a little bit more planning can go a long way, have a planner, or a calendar, either in paper form or on your phone, so you can see what’s there, what meetings you have to go to, what kind of deadlines you have to meet, integrate these with your goals and your list of to dos. So you have a very clear plan of action.

For a period of time when I was overwhelmed by the workload, I used to feel really anxious because I didn't know where to start, and I couldn't really focus, what will really help me through was to look at my list, find a top task and start doing it without over thinking.

Once you start actually doing it, your anxiety level goes down significantly.面对巨大的工作量，打败焦虑的办法就是跟着你的list干就完事了。当你真正开始做一件事情，10~20分钟左右，你的焦虑感会大大降低。

So that was about mentally getting your day started. How do we prepare for the day physically? A great tip would be get moving, get the blood flowing, we all know the benefits of exercises, this might be a run, a gym session, yoga stretching which is finding your own short workouts. Listen to your body, you'll find the perfect exercise that will boost your energy level and your mood.

Another tip is to clean your physical space, simple things as making the bed or organizing your desk. When our physical space is cluttered, our minds often feel the same way. So decluttering can also be a very good way to start your day. One more tip here is obviously eat a good breakfast. I'm sure many people including me in the past, would find different reasons to skip breakfast, not hungry first thing in the morning, pushed for time or you're trying to lose weight.

Actually, research suggests that people who eat breakfast are generally slimmer, because they tend to eat less during the day, particularly fewer high calorie snacks. 其实吃好营养早餐会大大减少你随后因为饥饿而暴食或者吃零食的几率。

Creating the habit of eating in the morning is something you can build towards, start off with a light bite, especially for those of us who are pushed for time, there are many quick and simple but healthy breakfast choices, things like boiled eggs.

Lately I've been eating boiled eggs with avocado, Greek yogurt, you know the type of yogurt that does not have any added sugar.无糖的希腊酸奶，certain types of fruits, especially berries各种浆果类, and also healthier types of oat meals and cereal 还有那种比较健康的燕麦和谷物早餐。

In China, we also say breakfast is the most important meal of the day. This is especially true if you want to start your day off right, and have the energy to be as productive as possible.

So that ends today's episode about morning routine, how to set your goals, choose your tasks and prepare yourself mentally and physically for a great day. So are you a morning person? Share with us your morning routine?

See you next time.