The Morning Grind (If Only it was Just Coffee) -Jill Johnson

My day, every day, started at 7 am. 7 am no matter what weekday it was, no matter how late my mother had called me the night before because she forgot about the time change, no matter how tired I was. 7 am. Usually, this made me the first one in the office, if not Alex had beaten me in, and the coffee was already on. There was little time wasted on frivolity and chatting. Whoever was in first was already working by the time the next person arrived and so on. We greeted each other, make a cup of our choice, and settled in to start the day. You could say I guess that our routine was the start early. The small office size of only four people (max.) made it easy to get lost in your computer without ever being interrupted. The office was a peaceful place, quiet beyond the occasional phone call.

As my internship progressed, I began to see the value in the way our mornings ran. Though my coworkers sometimes trickled in on their own schedule, there was a mentality of once you were at work, work got done. It made for a productive headspace. I knew when I got up in the morning that getting ready and travelling to work was my ‘me time’ and I expected

the environment once I arrived. I found myself preparing mentally for what I would do when I arrived. What would need my attention first, what I needed to get done that day, if there were any questions I had in order to get my tasks completed. The morning routine at g4g I attributed to the productivity we had in the mornings.

I came to this conclusion after comparing the days I was in the office from the morning opening, to those days I arrived after my French class. The office normally opened at 9 am, the days I came in at 11. Those missing two hours made me less focused I found. Along with coming in late, leaving early, and Friday afternoons I found to be less productive as well. On the days when everyone was looking forward to the weekend the routine was to finish up just a little early and spend some time chatting before we headed out for the weekend.

On a whole, the routine of the workplace whether it was knowing the time would be more productive or less so allowed my coworkers and I to allocate our time better and get more done throughout the day.