The Early Bird Gets the Work Done

Some people swear by their night owl ways, and I used to be one of them. However, family life and a 9-5 world doesn't yield to that most of the time. Even when it does, its often that people spend more time "doing things", while actually achieving less.

For me, waking up early was out of necessity rather than preference. I would stay up until 3 many nights working on different projects. While I was alone and without distractions from other people at night, thoughts of the day still filled my head, like ghosts that refused to leave. As a parent it was hard to switch back from mothering and bedtimes to to-do lists and emails. It is also far too easy to hop online and "research" for an hour (which turns into 3), or to catch up on a show because those are things I save for when my daughter is in bed. I was up longer each night, but getting less things done. One busy week had me both staying up late and getting up early, and I found that the morning hours had quite a few advantages. The next week was just as busy, but as I was exhausted, all the work got done in the morning instead. My productivity increased and I'm now an early morning convert.

Mornings give you time to get your big projects out of the way first. That provides great momentum for the rest of your day. You can also have this uninterrupted time set aside to work on long term personal or work related projects that don't fit elsewhere in your schedule. No one is (usually) expecting you to answer an email at 5:30, so that can be given a lower priority than say, improving a computer skill, working on a dream journal/board, or update on work projects.

You don't have to fight the usual "quitting time" mentality. When everyone is going home or getting ready for bed it's natural to feel like you should be rushing to squeeze in and wrap up as much too. It's a struggle to stay attentively on task when you're alert enough to argue yourself into cutting corners or quitting, than it is to habitually rise early.

There is a psychological boost in seeing the sun rise rather than set. Speaking from personal experience, it's much more encouraging to hear, feel, and see the world waking up to start afresh than to see it shifting down to sleep. This is also a peak time of day to meditate or for spiritual study.

Begin by setting your alarm 30 minutes earlier, but don't feel bad if you spend 15 of those minutes hitting the snooze button. Congratulate yourself on the extra fifteen minutes - that's enough time to fix a healthy breakfast, prioritize your day's goals, or simply stretch and meditate. After a few days, push the clock back by another 15 or 30. You now have a decent amount of time to exercise or study.

Don't try to do too much at first. Saying you will wake up 2 hours early, exercise, write 2000 words, and organize your entire office, could be setting yourself up for discouragement. At first, enjoy the solitude, the not needing to be anywhere or doing anything. Just Be. Call it meditation if you like (I usually spend this time with a cup of coffee, so I don't go that far.)

Waking up between 4:30-5:30 and hitting the pillow between 9 and 10 still gives 7-8 hours of sleep. Even if you're sleeping till 6 you're getting a good jumpstart. Our sleep needs vary from day to day. Some days are just more stressful and physically demanding than others, so go to bed when you feel tired. So the key is to keep your wake time within an hour's variance. Your body will let you know that night if you need more time, but waking up at roughly the same time sets a routine. As long as you're not dropping off at 7 each night you're probably getting more done so that when it's time for life - the real, people centered part of life - you can be more fully present and peaceful knowing you're on top of things.

As the whole point of being more productive is to have more time and less worry (and sometimes more money), I'm enjoying the peace of mind getting up early is bringing. Alhough now I'd get up early even if I didn't have to, this proverb from Peter's Almanac gives one of the best reasons of all to do so: "Early to bed and early to rise - till you get enough money to do otherwise."