Productivity Tip:

Earn Your Dopamine

Scrolling, snacking, or checking your phone gives your brain a quick hit of dopamine—the feel-good chemical linked to reward. But these tiny bursts can hijack your focus if they show up before you’ve made progress. 

Try this instead: delay the reward by tying it to a micro-task. Tell yourself, “I can scroll—right after I send this email/write one sentence/open the file.” 

Research shows that small wins build momentum and boost motivation, so even the tiniest action can shift you from stuck to starting. You’re not cutting off pleasure—you’re just earning it. 

Over time, your brain learns to associate that dopamine hit with progress, not procrastination. Try it for a week. You might be surprised how often that “one sentence” turns into a full flow session!

Routine Breakdown

Amy Landino, Personal Brand Coach, 3x Bestselling Author & Keynote Speaker

A 5-Step Framework for Winning the Day

Amy Landino says that she’s finally nailed 5am starts. The secret? Using systems over willpower, and doing a 7-day reset where you wake up 15 mins earlier each day for a week. Here’s her 5-step morning framework for winning the day. 

The Routine:

• Skips the snooze button. She borrows Mel Robbins’ 5-Second Rule: she sits, puts her feet on the floor and counts down from 5 to 1 before thinking about her first task for the day to switch into action mode.
• Hydrates and moves. She drinks room temp water with lemon: “I need it, it’s there, it’s waiting for me.” She does some physical therapy exercises to wake up her body. 
• Writes morning pages. “I get this clarity of sitting down and writing three longhand pages that allow me to take the next step in my creativity. Because the first step is getting out all the stuff that doesn’t matter: the grudges, the nightmares, the worries, the things you wake up holding onto.”
• Makes a win list: “1-3 things that would make the day amazing.” She tries to accelerate the list by getting those things done as soon as possible.
• Reviews her goals and vision. “I do this twice a day: to start the day and end it. This is a vital part of my routine that gets me activated to take that next step.”

Why it works:

• While snoozing may not be as bad for your health as once thought, it does bring the temptation to keep sleeping, while getting up immediately feels like a win.
• Journaling has a bunch of benefits thanks to the psychological processes it entails—like releasing emotions and increasing cognitive processing.
• Reviewing your goals and priorities at the start of the day keeps you focused on the things that matter. That’s why it’s part of our daily Panda Planner.

“If you fall off the morning routine wagon today, it’s all right. Give it another go. Learn from your mistakes and choose progress over perfection,” says Amy. Her full video has a bunch of tips on building systems, how to make routines stick, and prepping the night before—it’s worth checking it out here.