I am currently in my seventh year with the same company. My bosses work in a separate office and I’m a senior person on a lot of my projects, which means I have a lot of flexibility to arrange my own time, throughout each day and then across the week.

Recently, I’ve felt a bit in a work rut. A lot of it has to do with the amount of work I have (not an overwhelming amount) and the way consulting has trained my brain to only work on urgent tasks. Some of it has been the constant news – news news news news news – all the time, every time, almost always crazy.

On days when I’m not that productive, I feel sort of bummed out. Moody, depressed – like I didn’t do enough work at work so don’t fully get to go home.

I’ve been thinking through creating a new morning work ritual. It would include:

1. Turning my laptop on and letting it load up. In this period, I can putz around on my phone, but not open the internet to look at any news, information, etc.
2. Opening my email – both work and personal – to see if there is anything urgent. Reply to anything urgent.
3. Closing the internet and disconnecting my work email from the server.
4. Choosing my most important tasks for the day & writing these down on paper.
5. Setting a timer for 45 minutes and doing the tasks — without email or other distractions – and while standing at my desk.
6. Taking a break to get a cup of coffee.
7. Setting a timer for 45 minutes and doing the tasks — without email or other distractions – and while standing at my desk.

That’s it — basically aiming for two periods of at least 45-minutes of focused work to start my morning. I likely wouldn’t be able to do this every day (and would love to come up with a different ritual for days I work from home) but think it would be great for those days where I don’t have a lot of meeting and have long periods of time.