This means doing your best to make the most of the first part of the day: arise early and jump into doing the most important tasks of the day. Practice good habits. Then, as the day expands and becomes less in your control, you've 'won' the morning.
I use 'win the morning!' almost as a mantra, and just that single, simple idea been life-changing.
I guess what I'm saying is, I feel like if you put the right spin on almost any series of morning activities you can call it winning the morning. So it's not very prescriptive advice that I can use to be more productive. It's almost a tautology - to be more productive, start your day by being productive.
the quote from hemmingway "write drunk, edit sober" comes to mind, if you replace drunk with tired
And if going to the gym in the morning makes the rest of your day productive by providing you with lots of energy and a clear head, then yes, going to the gym is the most important and productive for you to do in the AM.
You might like this newsletter/podcast: dailystoic.com
"If it's your job to eat a frog, it's best to do it first thing in the morning. And If it's your job to eat two frogs, it's best to eat the biggest one first."
- not Mark Twain.
Setting a central focus for the morning, and working to accomplish it before noon is critical. If I cannot finish whatever it is, I usually become so incensed that that drive lasts me the rest of the afternoon.
...and I track every day in my Google Docs journal. I lay out the thing I want to accomplish that day, and then just break it out to the steps needed to accomplish it before the day gets filled with distractions.
It turns out, this simple journal is the one habit I've that's lasted more than a year - it's become invaluable. of all the GTD, Pomodoros, Google tasks, etc... ...all I ever needed was a list in a doc that was broken into dated sections.