10 Tools to Upgrade Your Morning Routine

Each day is an opportunity to do better, live better, grow, learn more, and be more. Seize it. The first hour after you wake up sets the tone of your entire day, so it’s vital to make the most of it. These tools can help you seize opportunities, achieve goals, and become the person you want to be. From news to wisdom to self-development, for fun and for business, these apps, newsletters, and routines can help you live a little more every day.

1.

Shine is the mindful living app to help you set a mood each morning. This tool sends a daily text message with a quote, piece of advice, helpful article, or suggested action that you can try that day to freshen up your routine and help you see things from a new perspective.

2.

Highbrow teaches you something new every day. As you sip your morning coffee and rub the sleep from your eyes, Highbrow delivers a short, 5-minute email lesson to help you learn anything from art and philosophy, to business and personal development. Lessons are delivered one-at-a-time, for 10 days, and are followed by fun, knowledge-testing quizzes at the end of each course. With over 250 courses in the Highbrow catalog, you’ll never run out of new things to learn.

3.

Capturing daily moments is the only way to fully appreciate the bounty in your life. The Five Minute Journal app specifically reminds you to take time out of your busy day-to-day to reflect on the good, learn from the bad, and capture the magical moments that really matter. Daily journaling has been shown to increase life satisfaction, decrease feelings of stress, anxiety, loneliness, and depression, and to help people improve the record of their life’s milestones.

4.

There’s a lot going on in the world, and The Skimm is designed to help you make sense of it all. The Skimm is a daily inbox newsfeed to give you context about current events, in less than 10 minutes each morning. Wake up to a quick and easy-to-understand summary of big topics that people will be talking about, and save yourself the trouble of picking through news that you don’t want to find the news that you need.

5.

Thousands of books are published every day, from experts all over the world, on topics that affect your life. How could you possibly read them all? Blinkist might be the answer. Choose from their database of thousands of nonfiction books, and read/listen to 15-minute summaries of each book’s content.

6.

Sure, there are plenty of boring weather apps, and you’ve probably had experience using a weather app that was wildly inaccurate. But there’s nothing quite like Poncho — the personalized, entertaining, and (actually) helpful weather app that livens up your day.

7.

They say that life happens in each breath. Headspace is a daily meditation program to help you learn how to control your breath, improve your life, and think your way to an overall better experience. A handy, progressive guided meditation app that helps beginners learn to focus inward, while challenging more experienced users to take their meditations to new levels. Choose from meditation courses that specifically help you control food cravings, lower anxiety, improve sleep quality, and more.

8.

Like to start your day with a coffee and business news? Then you need the Morning Brew. A daily email newsletter that arrives every morning just in time for your morning cup o’ Joe, and an easy way to catch up on what’s going on in business and technology, so you can stay ahead of the day. The world didn’t stop while you slept, and you can’t afford to fall behind. Instead, get your Morning Brew of business news topics that interest and affect you.

9.

Just seven minutes of movement each day can improve your overall health and well being. That’s the philosophy and science behind the 7 Minute Workout. A guided series of exercises that require no equipment and use your own body weight and resistance, this workout is easy for anyone, anywhere, without working up (too much) of a sweat. As an overall body workout, or to focus on toning areas you’re most concerned with, this routine is a great way to start the day with your workout already checked off your list.

10.

“Finance doesn’t have to be rocket science.” That’s what they say at Finimize. This email newsletter boils down each day’s essential financial news topics and delivers them to you in bite-sized updates you can absorb in three minutes or less.

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