Literal translation
the morning makes the day
Meaning
the bulk of the day's work gets done in the morning
Explanation
Matinado means the morning, and jornado, a variant of journado also attested in common usage, means the day; la matinado fa la jornado thus literally translates as the morning makes the day, with no gap between the literal and the used sense. The expression asserts that the bulk of a day's work gets done in the morning, when energy and focus are at their best, making it a practical principle traditionally applied to farm work, where the cool hours before the heat were used to get through the heaviest tasks. The proverb implicitly urges against putting off work early in the day, at the risk of losing the rhythm and momentum needed to finish the planned task. The register is proverbial and sententious, passed down as a rule of peasant common sense, still used today more broadly for any work whose early hours are thought to determine the whole day's output.