If you’re reading this blog, you probably keep a to-do list of some kind.

I’m a big fan of Getting Things Done, of course, but there’s more than one way to skin a cat. Whether you use GTD, a Bullet Journal, a simple to-do list or something else, a single question confronts you every day:

What should I do first?

There are different ways to approach this, and how you choose to answer this question has major implications for how your day unfolds.

I have all the water I need, and it’s basically free.

My socks are wool, and my feet are warm.

I have socks.

I have many socks.

I live in America in 2016. Not Siberia in 1953. Or Polynesia in 1497. Or Mesopotamia in 321 BC. My basic rights are assured, I have access to mind-blowing healthcare (if I get cancer they will cut me open and take it out), and there is virtually no chance that a maurading band of raiders will pillage my home and murder me as I write this.

Since 2010, I’ve been thinking and reading about success, tracking and analyzing my own triumphs and failures, and studying others’ victories and defeats. And I’ve had quite a laboratory in which to observe success: as an academic advisor, I’ve advised or taught over 1,000 college students, all with dreams of success (and different definitions of it).

In short, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what makes one person succeed and another fail. And I’m convinced there’s one factor that looms above the rest:

When I worked as a freelance musician, I was self-employed.

I currently work in higher ed, and the way I see it, I’m still self-employed. In fact, I go to great pains to remind myself of this frequently.

We all want to create change in the world while simultaneously advancing our careers, right? I’ve found that approaching any and all work with a self-employed mindset helps with both of these goals, and I’m asking you to consider thinking this way for three reasons.

I’ve been interested in productivity for about five years now, and I’m a little embarassed to admit I only recently adopted an intentional, well-designed morning routine.

Productivity experts the world over will tell you that mornings are key: “If you win the morning, you win the day,” as the saying goes.

Everyone has a collection of things they do each morning, but most of us don’t have a premeditated, deliberate routine: