Working from home means that finally you have more time for you. No?
Well, you will once you learn the work from home Unhustle Morning practices.
Emails. Text Messages. WhatsApp. Messenger. Viber. Instagram. Facebook. Twitter. LinkedIn. Your morning is off to a scrambling start causing your brain to go into panic. Only to get worse.
Zoom calls. Bored kids. Disengaged team. At the end of the day you wonder why you didn’t get anything done. Meanwhile, your body and your brain are screaming at you for attention.
You feel exhausted. No time for yourself again. At the end of the day, you need to cook dinner and spend time with the family.
So much for getting a workout in.
Does this sound like your day? What if there is another way to get through your day? What if you could take a little bit of time for you in the morning? what if you can start your day with calm and joy and be able to get your work done in fewer hours by getting into a state of flow?
I have decided that I longer want to go through my days feeling frazzled and overwhelmed. I decided to take care of my mind and body and get focused on my work so I can work for 3-4 hours each day and have more time for play and life.
To do so, I start my days with a set of ancient and modern practices, I loving refer to as the Unhustle Morning – using the S.U.N.R.I.S.E. method™.
Yep, I invented it.
You too can have an Unhustle Morning. There are no secrets about it. It’s not a typical morning routine. Actually, I don’t even like to call it a routine. It’s a loose set of practices that I follow based on how my mind and body feel every day.
An Unhustle Morning starts with waking up when our body says it’s time. There is no alarm clock. Of course, this is easier if you also went to bed when it got dark outside with no screens in front of you and you got a good night sleep. So the first practice in the Unhustle Morning is SLEEP. (S in the Sunrise stands for Sleep).
Got it? Let’s move on.
After that, comes making sure that you don’t look at your phone first thing in the morning. This part is important if you want to keep your focus and attention in the morning for your most important work.
This is the “U” in SUNRISE.
Go outside for a walk in nature. Move slowly. Admire the beautiful sunrise. Listen to the birds chirping. Listen to your breathing. Feel grateful for being outside, for being in nature, for waking up, for the silence, the peace and the quiet. Don’t worry, pretty soon, you’ll catch up to the world. Just not yet. This is your time.
You are now doing the “N” part in SUNRISE.
As you do it, your creativity turns on and you grab your journal. Writing in whatever comes to mind, planning your day.
Take a few minutes to read someone you love. Reading is a meditative exercise and it improves your cognitive performance. Plus, it will put you in a better mood.
That’s the “R” part in SUNRISE.
Focus on the three most important projects you are going to do today. No more, only three. I know you have a lot more to do. This is an exercise of simplifying and focusing. When you complete your three things, you’ll feel happy and productive. You can get other tasks done too.
This is the “I” in the SUNRISE.
It’s still early and no one is awake. Spend 10 min meditating. My favorite ways to meditate are in nature or on the couch. My body needs to feel completely comfortable for my mind to relax.
We are almost done. This is the “S” part in SUNRISE. Finding time for a little bit of stillness in your day.
Finally, “E” stands for Energy.
Take 10-15 min to move your body with some gentle yoga, QiGong and stretching poses. Breathing in, breathing out. Work out the kinks and feel the energy starting to flow. Now your body wants more. Give it 5 – 10 minutes of high energy workout and get your blood going. A quick HIIT workout with basic moves: squats, jumps, push ups and planks. Your body is warm from the yoga and energized from the quick workout. You are bursting with energy.
I make a high performance drink to feed my brain. Sometimes it’s a bulletproof coffee and sometimes a matcha moringa latte. A quick shower finished with 30 sec of cold shower prepares you for the day ahead.
You feel calm, energized, and ready to start your day. This is the Unhustle Morning™. I hope you enjoy these practices and get out of hustle mode at least in the morning.
And if you want my guidance and resources, I created the Unhustle Morning online course that will show you how to do them all in less than 10 min a day over 7 days.