The Morning Coffee Sprint

If you really need to get things done early in the day (like I do today), try the morning coffee sprint. (You can file this post under “productivity hacks that are helpful but not sustainable.”)

Before you have breakfast, or eat anything in the morning, start working on a task that will take you less than 90 minutes. Once you get a little momentum, put a pot of coffee on. Your body won’t have any of the post-breakfast weight, and your brain will be moving at a hundred miles per hour. Almost as if you were still hunting for your first meal in the morning. 

After you get a little momentum, grab that cup of coffee to add fuel to the fire. You’ll be moving at a hundred and ten miles per hour now–but it can only last so long. Once you complete the task you set out for yourself, stop. Go eat breakfast. There’s nothing worse than trying to push this strategy too far, and then crashing hard because you have no food in your stomach and the coffee just gobbled up whatever was left in there. This will ruin your productivity for the rest of the day.  

Again, I wouldn’t recommend this strategy as a daily one, because it’s a precarious catwalk. Too many successful days in a row might inspire you to push it a little further, causing a crash. Or, you might start feeling like you never need to eat another meal again! Also not true. 

I just used this strategy and cranked out two blog posts in 25 minutes. Good luck!