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If You Lose an Hour in the Morning, You’ll Be Chasing It All Day
We’re not just talking about productivity and “getting stuff done” here.
This idea of placing special emphasis on how we begin our days goes much deeper than this, and…no exaggeration…can even change how our entire lives turn out.
Obviously, starting off your morning rushed and dazed and confused isn’t doing anything for your productivity, so yes, definitely put that Time Management 101 stuff into action!
Run through your schedule for the next day, put out the clothes you’re going to wear — all that boring stuff actually does work.
But what about what you see in the mornings, what you’re looking for, and what you let into that most valuable of real estate, your consciousness?
There’s an amazing quote from one of my favorite books, Zorba the Greek, by Nikos Kazantzakis that illustrates this point beautifully.
The unnamed narrator is about to dive into reading from Dante’s Divine Comedy, and faces a critical choice. The poem is split into three sections (Hell, Purgatory, Heaven), and how his day turns out depends on which message from Dante he allows to penetrate his mind:
“I took out my fellow traveler, a pocket edition of Dante’s Divine Comedy. Lighting my pipe and leaning against…