I’ve done this for about six months now—start early to focus on what’s most important to me to be exact—so I might be able to share some useful tips:

1. Drink a glass of water, first thing.
2. Splash some water on your face, it really does help.
3. If your head is still not with you yet, warm up. Do some push-ups, yoga exercise, or something else that activates your body—and head.
4. If your first task pushes back. Break it down, or do a related task for five minutes. For example, if my first task is programming challenge, I might make CSS arrows for five minutes to prime my mind for the real task.
5. Or, simply smile! Hey, you’re starting your day with something of outmost importance to you—what’s more awesome than that? 😁

Since I wake up at 5.15 am every day I usually also get the question: “how do you manage to wake up so early?” What I’ve discovered is that if what I’m setting out to do when I wake up is important to me, I’ll look forward to get the day started and therefore have no problem leave the bed. Though it probably helps that I got to bed around 9.30–10.00 pm and don’t watch TV.