By Chelsea Babin

Automation is all the rage in the IT industry. Should you apply these same concepts to streamline your morning routine? Yes! Here are 3 great reasons why automating your mornings will help you ease into productivity and focus at work.

1. Minimal Effort: Once you set up your systems for automation, you have to put in minimal or no effort to keep them going. Plus, when things become automatic, you won’t have to find the motivation not to hit snooze or skip several steps in your routine.

2. Consistent Results: If you want to be seen as a reliable employee or you want your focus at work to become more automatically, the secret lies in consistency. Start your day with a consistent routine and you’ll get more consistent results throughout the workday.

3. Room to Tweak and Optimize: When you’re using systems and technology to help automate your mornings, you can see where you need improvement or where you need to make tweaks. Then, you can optimize your automation to help find the perfect morning routine!

Now that you’re convinced that you need to automate your morning, here are 6 tips that will help you do it!

1. Lights and Temperature: From the Nest thermostat to the wide variety of smart bulbs on the market, you can gradually wake yourself up in a comfortable, cozy fashion by scheduling the temperature to change and the lights to slowly turn on in your room. This will help you get up and wake up gradually, which will certainly improve your mood and feel less jarring than a standard alarm.

2. Additional Noise: When your alarm just isn’t cutting it, you may want to invest in a smart home hub so you can turn on the TV or another noisemaker about 10 minutes after you’re supposed to wake up every day. This will serve as the final, unavoidable deadline for waking up when you’re tempted to press snooze over and over again.

3. Caffeine Boost: A lot of coffee makers and electric kettles have the option to turn on at a certain time and auto-brew. If you want to wake up to the smell of your caffeine boost ready to go or you want the motivation to get out of bed before your coffee or tea gets cold, look for machines that have these timers.

4. Motivational Playlist, Podcast, or Audiobook: While you’re getting ready, if you have a smart speaker, you can easily schedule it to turn on with your favorite motivational playlist, podcast, or audiobook to help you get ready and get in the right mindset each morning.

5. The Old Fashioned Way: While a lot of these automation solutions involve having the right gadgets and technology at your fingertips, you can always automate your mornings the old fashioned way: by preparing your outfit, necessary work bag, breakfast and lunch, and whatever else you need the night before and setting them in strategic locations. This will help you get up and go in a flash and make it to work on time every day.

Ready to automate your mornings? Use these 5 tips to help jumpstart and standardize your morning routine so you’ll be more focused and productive at work every day!