Morning rituals work even for night people

I've been following the Freelance Switch blog, which is full of tips for independent contractors in writing, photography, design, and programming.

This post on Creating a Morning Writing Ritual resonated with me. (Even a dyed-in-the-wool night person has to start the workday somewhere.) One of the points the writer makes is that if you focus and get a good chunk of writing done right at the beginning of your workday, you can take time off to relax later on. I like to reward myself mid-afternoon with some gardening.

The post also suggests that you jump directly into writing without first checking email; my version of this has been to set a timer, to spend 15 minutes checking email and flagging certain messages for later attention, then to move on to the writing tasks.