Agreed about the lack of substance here. This is a fluff piece.
Most people waste a lot time in the morning building up enough courage (or guilt) to start their real work. They check email, read blogs, chat around the water cooler...whatever. All that stuff can wait until you actually need a break. Personally, when I jump right in and start writing code, it has a huge impact on my productivity for the day.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/5208608/Night-o...
Instead of achieving the most important goal of every day before putting on some clothes, perhaps a small, bite-sized task before anything else would be more practical. I can't see myself achieving my important goals for every day before eating anything, as most of those goals take hours, and I like breakfast.
Personally, I'd like to try this with a goal I've been consistently failing on: reading a bit and writing out my thoughts on what I have read. Small, fulfilling, and something I will wake up, excited to do.
This is a pretty huge task - multiple migrations, special one-time pushes of data from database 1 to 2, scores of test suites, rewriting and merging models, etc.
My secret:
* wake up
* cook three eggs for breakfast
* walk the dogs 1 mile around the reservoir
* drive 1.9 miles to work
* work for 10 hours
I think that steps 1-4 don't really hamper my ability to do step 5.
"This needs to be done the night before."
I've been doing this part for years and it has really made a difference. It only takes 15 to 30 minutes, but I review hard copy every night just before lights out. I always know the first thing I'll be working on the next day.
I don't go to OP's extreme by doing the first thing before anything else. But maybe I should. I could easily get this first hour of work in before anything else. I may give this a try next week to see how much difference it makes overall. Stay tuned...
