Before you start your work for the day, or begin another session, is there anything you routinely do just before you begin?

A routine, a habit, a ritual?

Maybe you always sit down with a fresh cup of your favorite hot beverage. Maybe you put on headphones and listen to your favorite jam. Maybe you assemble your notes or review what you wrote the day before.

You might like to check your calendar and task list, clear your email inbox, or dash off some instructions to your assistant, to clear your mind of those tasks so you can work on things that require more focus.

Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit, said a “getting to work” ritual makes getting started easier and makes procrastination less likely, even if that ritual has nothing to do with the work itself.

Surfing the web, playing a video game, reading a few pages in a novel—a starting ritual could be anything that puts you in a good mood.

“When people talk about procrastination,” Duhigg said, “what they’re usually talking about is the first step. In general, if people can habitualize that first step, it makes it a lot easier.”

It seems it’s not so much what you do, it’s that you do something that signals your brain it’s time to get to work.

Researchers tell us that not only can a starting ritual help you start, it can also help you perform better. No doubt that has a lot to do with being in a good mood.

Whether you call it getting warmed up, clearing the morning cobwebs from your brain, or having a bit of fun before you dive into the challenges of the day, a getting started ritual makes a lot of sense.

Before I wrote this, I played Words With Friends for 5 minutes, scrolled through my YouTube feed and bookmarked some videos to watch later, and got some coffee.

I don’t know if it helped me get started, but it sure put me in a good mood. Yeah, it was probably the coffee.