Create a Healthy Morning Routine for Working From Home

Remote work often allows for a bit more flexibility than working from an office. It can save a lot of time, primarily on commutes. But there are still many time-wasters lurking in the shadows of working remotely.

Staying productive can be a challenge when you work from the comfort of your own home, away from the sweeping gaze of your boss or the judgmental glances of your colleagues. It’s all too easy to stay on your phone a bit too long without anyone to witness it.

The morning is probably the most challenging time for work-from-home productivity. If you come to the office late, everybody will notice, but who will check the time on your good morning Slack message?

In this article, we will show you how establishing a successful morning routine can contribute to your overall productivity when working remotely. We will also show you how to create a morning routine that works for you, step-by-step.

Why do I need a morning routine?

If you generally dislike routine, you may be tempted to stop reading now. But wait, don’t leave! We will show you why everyone needs some form of routine in their lives, even you.

Humans are creatures of habit. Even if you like surprises and shaking things up, chances are, you have formed some kind of your own routine, anyway.

Our personality usually dictates our preferences, but the truth is that routine is all about the body. Our bodies quickly adopt habits and have a hard time breaking them. Why do you think quitting smoking is such a challenge?

Human bodies function better when they know what to expect and when to expect it, rewarding us with good health and good mood. This is why keeping up a stable morning routine is key to maintaining productivity when working from home.

How to create a morning routine for creating work from home?

1. Get up earlier
2. Wake up at the same time every day
3. Change out of PJs
4. Have breakfast before work
5. Go on a short walk or exercise
6. Drink water
7. Don't work in bed
8. Ignore your phone and laptop until you start work
9. Adjust the morning routine to your needs 

1. Get up earlier

It’s very tempting to roll out of bed 5 minutes before the starting time when you work from home. Why wouldn’t you, if you don’t have to spend an hour stuck in traffic to get to an office? The most traffic you will experience working remotely is probably your dog blocking your way to the bathroom.

However, your body - mainly, your brain - would appreciate it more if you woke up a bit earlier. We know it doesn’t seem like it in the morning. The main message our brains send us when the alarm rings is IGNORE. GO BACK TO SLEEP.

But it is actually very challenging for your mind to go straight from sleep mode to work mode. It needs more than 5 minutes to switch. So reaching for your laptop isn’t the first thing you should do when you wake up. 

Leave enough time to have a shower, eat breakfast, and get dressed. 

2. Wake up at the same time every day

Even if you don’t keep regular working hours, you should keep regular waking hours. 

You may perceive an extra hour in bed on Wednesdays as a treat, but your body won’t see it that way. It won’t like it, and it will retaliate by making you less productive.

Your body is a clock. For best optimal performance, it should wake up, eat, and go to sleep at the same time every day.

You can’t always control what time you go to bed - even though you should aim for at least 7 hours every night. But you can control what time you set your alarm clock to. And it should be at the same time every day. Period. 

3. Change out of PJs

The concept of lounging all day in your PJs is tempting, but let’s leave that treat for days free of work. By staying in the same clothes you sleep in, you’re sending a clear message to your brain - we’re not busy.

And if we’re not busy, we don’t need to be focused. Or productive. 

Draw a clear line between work and leisure time. This can be difficult when your home is also your office, so you have to be assertive. Achieve it by making small changes such as getting dressed in regular clothes or separating your working space from your relaxing space.

If dressing smartly helps you get into working mode, dig up slacks and button-ups. If you feel more productive wearing something comfortable, lounge pants or shorts are fine, too.

The only dress code when you work from home is one that makes you feel good. 

4. Have breakfast before work

What would you pick: food or sleep?

Normally, it’s a very difficult question. Impossible to answer, even. 

But in the context of a morning routine for working from home, the response should be: food. 

Don’t sacrifice a peaceful breakfast for an extra 20 minutes in bed. Eating the most important meal of the day without a screen to accompany you will bring you more benefits than snoozing. 

In fact, eating any meal in front of your work laptop is one of the biggest threats to productivity when you work from home. It messes with work-life balance and blurs the line between professional and private matters, which is already too thin for remote workers.

Eat breakfast before you open your laptop, and take a break for lunch. Your body will thank you for it. 

5. Go on a short walk or exercise

Working from home removes one of the most annoying elements of the daily routine - the dreaded commute. And in general, it is beneficial for our mental health, as it saves us from a large portion of stress. 

However, the daily commute has one extra function many people forget about. It serves as the transition point between home and the office and helps us to mentally get ready for work. 

That element is lacking when you work from home. The way from your bed to your desk is too short to properly transition.

A great solution for this is to take a short walk or do some exercise before you start work. It will elevate your morning routine to new heights and boost your productivity.

Nothing will clear your head like a dose of fresh air in the morning. On rainy days, you can opt for light exercise such as yoga or stretching. It is much less stressful than being stuck in traffic on your way to work, but it will give your brain the time it needs to relax and switch into working mode. 

6. Drink water

When was the last time you drank water today? This is your sign to go and have a glass of water right now. 

Staying hydrated is important in general, but it’s also a crucial part of your morning routine when you work from home. Many remote workers rush through their mornings and may forget to drink in the frenzy of getting dressed and answering early calls.

Form a habit of drinking an entire glass of water before work. Ideally, do it before breakfast. And if you add some lemon juice, your body will love you even more. 

7. Don’t work in bed

Working from bed is one of the mortal sins of remote work. Sadly, it is also one of the biggest temptations.

But ultimately, it is a surefire way to quickly ruin your work-life balance. Your bed should be your sanctuary, and bringing work to it will desecrate it. Not to mention, it’s terrible for your spine.

Create a designated workspace in your home and keep your work contained to it. Don’t eat your meals there, and don’t bring your laptop to your relaxing space. 

And don’t go down the rabbit hole of “I’ll only check my email before I get up” or “only twenty minutes until I wake up properly”. No.

Before you know it, you will have responded to every email, generated two reports, and participated in a meeting - with the camera off, of course, because you’re still in bed. 

And you know very well it’s never just twenty minutes. Today it will be half an hour, tomorrow a full hour, and by the end of the week, you will have spent the entire day in bed.

What will you look forward to during the weekend when that happens? 

If you don’t leave your bed, you won’t achieve all the other steps, either - getting dressed, going up for a walk, changing out of PJs, or having breakfast before work. And if that happens, you have no chance of establishing a healthy morning routine when working from home. Bye, bye, productivity! 

8. Ignore your phone and laptop until you start work

If you start work at 9 AM, you should open your laptop no earlier than 8:55 AM. And your phone should remain wherever it had spent the night until then, too.

The morning is your time. Use it to get ready for a productive day and allocate some quality me-time. 

If you check your inbox while brushing your teeth or eat breakfast while typing, your morning routine already suffers. When you make one exception, you will keep pushing the boundaries until you end up working from bed - and remember, that is the ultimate mortal sin of working from home. 

You look at your screens plenty throughout the day. Any minute you can spend without them during the day is a minute you should be grateful for. Stick to your office hours - flexibility should boost your productivity, not rob you of your work-life balance. 

9. Adjust the morning routine to your needs

These are the general rules you should adhere to, but how you personalise them is up to you. Wake up at the same hour every day, but you get to decide what that hour is. If you’re not a fan of morning strolls, do yoga instead. 

Remote work usually allows for more flexibility in choosing working hours. If you don’t want to or can’t work according to the classic 9-5 timeframe, create a schedule that works for you. But remember to adjust your morning routine accordingly. 

The goal of your morning routine is to make you more productive and feel good - not to fill you with dread. If you get stressed thinking about sticking to it, it means something is wrong. If you feel it’s not working for you, figure out why and make changes. 

These are the steps to forming a healthy morning routine for working from home. Remember that it’s all about predictability. Your body is a clock - it needs to know what to expect and when to expect it.

Don’t give in to the temptations of working from bed, opening your laptop too early, or staying in your PJs all day long. Wake up early enough to eat a calm breakfast, do light exercise, and squeeze in some quiet me-time to transition from sleep mode to work mode.

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