Most People Do These 3 Steps to Avoid a Great Day Every Day

For most people, these steps are a habit

Gregor Pitsch
Ascent Publication
5 min readJul 26, 2018

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Photo by Nicole Harrington on Unsplash

“If you don’t think every day is a good day, try out missing one.” — Cavett Robert

Obviously, life is made out of our days. Therefore, I am really passionate about having great days. Makes sense, right?

Over the past two years, while heading consciously into the productivity section, I improved my days and especially my mornings in a way I could attain much better results and most importantly a much clearer and a healthier mind. I didn’t have the feeling of being full of stuff and information. Instead, I was kind of fresh for a much longer time.

I found three major actions which distracted me the most from feeling fresh, clear, and focused.

  • Getting up late
  • Grabbing your smartphone directly after opening your eyes
  • Checking the news

So I started to look into my environment. How did the standard look there? As you might imagine, all these actions were part of the “routine” of the most people. A moment later, I realized that the vast majority of the society has habits and routines where they love to get up late, directly grab their smartphone because they can and heading into some news of the day.

The two ways of getting up late

“Early is a priceless timepiece owned by the successful.” — Johnnie Dent Jr.

There are two ways of getting up late.

  1. You are literally the last man standing up.
  2. You are getting up only a microsecond before you have to leave your home.

From my own experience, I can definitely say, the days on those I got up early were much better than the ones I got up late. That is a reason enough for me to get up early on the vast majority of days.

The silence in the morning comes with a feeling of being the first at the starting point. When you are awake at 6 am, you are totally focused because you know, the vast majority of people doesn’t work on their goals and dreams. A feeling of hunger for crushing the day arises inside of you and you start creating your day like no day before.

It’s a fact that the magic happens in the early hours. Furthermore, I kind of appreciate the feeling of being awake when everybody else in the house stands up and look at me like I lost my mind.

If you don’t use the focus which is gifted to you in the morning, you will hunt for it the rest of the day.

“Lose an hour in the morning, and you will be all day hunting for it.” — Richard Whately

Of course, with “getting up a millisecond before leaving home” it is meant that you get up due to work or any other type of appointment. The point is, that you don’t have any personal time. You are determined by outer circumstances and outer circumstances don’t give a f*** about your stress level.

Be the master of your day. Control it from the very beginning. Otherwise, you give the control to someone else who, again, doesn’t give a f*** about your stress level.

“The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.” — Michael Altshuler.

Don’t give your time to someone else.

The smartphone’s bad habit

“We take better care of our smartphones than ourselves. We know when the battery is depleted and recharge it.” — Arianna Huffington

The smartphone has the unpleasant habit to take over the control of too many people directly in the morning. From the very first moment of the day, most people are connected to their smartphone. The moment after that, they are connected to the rest of the world already swimming in the flood of useless information.

This flood of information and ongoing connection to the rest causes a kind of constant standard noise in the head over the whole day. That standard noise prevents us from getting a clear mind and completely focused.

Not longer than two years ago, I started to let my smartphone turned down until I left university or until 2 pm. Do you know how refreshing that was? In the beginning, I had 2 pm as a benchmark but when I had a lecture after two my learning quality decreases significantly — less focus, less joy.

Today, I am really aware of using my device instead of letting it control me. Ask yourself regularly when you have your device in your hands, whether you handle with a purpose or rather unconsciously because it is the manner how you kill your time. Time by time, this question can change your life completely. For me, it worked even without having the purpose to change.

“You have to ask yourself whether you use your device or the device uses you.” — Denzel Washington

Another information flood

“If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you’re misinformed.” — Denzel Washington

In The 4-hour Workweek Tim Ferriss points out, he never reads the newspaper because the time is not worth the information. Although I was never a passionate newspaper reader, I am convinced, the newspaper delivers even more information to complain about. I don’t want to start my day by complaining. How about you?

If something really important happens in the world, you would hear the people talk about that “really important thing”. So much information and you cannot use it. Simply sad.

It’s the same with all kind of news. Some are more interested in the sports news, some are more interested in the political stuff. All on the way to look for something they can discuss or complain about. But the personal use of the most information is minimal for most of the time.

Foster focus and clarity over the day and you will see a huge increase in the quality of your day and life. Minimize distractions. It’s in your own best interest. I am convinced, these small changes can improve your life significantly.

“Every day, we are choosing shit that is not in our own best interest.” — Will Smith

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Gregor Pitsch
Ascent Publication

Monk Mindset | Athlete | Personal Development | Product Manager | Contact me: info@gregorpitsch.com