Wake Up Call! It’s 5AM!
November 12, 2007 | Author: Rob | Filed under: Time Management, What I am Doing
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Good morning blogosphere!
It is 5am eastern standard time and I’m already in my office. Albeit a short commute I’m ready to work and have ~3 hours of time slotted to my online businesses before my work week even begins! I enjoy getting up at 5am because it gives me the piece of mind while sleeping that I’ll have time to do anything I need to before my day starts. Gone are the days of aimlessly clicking around until 2am trying to figure something out or come up with some genius content; chances are it’s just not going to happen.
When you are working late night in my opinion you are trying to accomplish stuff before bed but you feel like you’re up against the 8 ball. You only have say 1 hour left in your day and want to get things done. Flip side is waking up super early. I am already a paragraph or so into this blog post and have well over 15 hours left of productive time for today.
I could be working after work but find a lot of my creative juices have been drained by a day of filing TPS reports. (If you have not seen the movie Office Space – I recommend you do!) Also after work many of us do not have the option. You may have kids or a family that needs tending to and you may have to watch some television after dinner to keep the significant other happy. Waking up gives you a few undisturbed hours each day to better yourself and plan for the future where maybe your commute may just be 2 rooms over.
As the Canadian winter approaches I’ve made the executive decision to start making my coffee here. Yes it’s delicious and convenient to get one made with the perfect ratio the way you like it but going outside in the cold and doing a trip that doesn’t give the car a chance to heat is quickly loosing its appeal. Also how much more time would I have if 15 minutes wasn’t wasted? I almost feel as though ever 15 minutes of time in this bizarre and often ignored period of the day is equivalent to 30 minutes or more in other times.
Image Courtesy of Flickr
A few tips that I have regarding to waking up early would be to prioritize what needs to be done and in the order of importance and interest. Do what is important first and what interests you later. Long after you’ve done your daily rounds and are beginning to get sick of internet chores; things that interest you won’t be so bad. If you leave important things that are a bit of a drag until the end chances are they just won’t get done. Of course this is just personal experience but I’m sure this is the same for many of us.
Finally at this time of day you have no distractions even if you wanted to. Who am I going to call at 5am to a warm receiving and in-depth business chat? Who is going to call me about something totally unrelated that is going to stress me and take my mind off achieving financial independence? Heck if I look outside it is still dark! I just have to make sure I don’t befriend too many Europeans, Asians and Australians with Skype and I *should* be alright!
It’s quite weird the way the world works; I bought this blog few days ago as I’m sure many of you are aware. About a week prior to that I started a blog called Bloggerites which was going to be a personal blog with a self development / business angle. I wrote about waking up early here and than again here. If waking up early is your thing or something that interests you I recommend you read them as well.
Here are a few tips to waking up early without feeling you’ve missed your rest.
1) Try and go to bed early; preferably when you feel tired. Most of us just stay up until a set hour which is often past our prime pass out window!
2) Try not to eat too much meat before bed. Your body has a hard time breaking it down and is often working over-drive to clear it while you sleep; this ‘stress’ on your body is taking away from restorative sleep.
3) If you have real problems waking up write a list of why you are waking up; where you want your life to go and how you need that precious time to make it happen.
4) Feel a bit like a drill sergeant but just suck it up one morning. Go to bed early and at 5am get up. The hardest part for most I’m sure is just ‘getting out of bed’. Make it a fire drill where you are up and at em. No excuses.
5) Have your work clothes laid out so finding something to wear isn’t a stress. Mine are all so close to my bed that I’m literally out of bed and dressed within 1-2 minutes of the alarm – if I use it!
6) Shower at night so you are free to get to it in the morning. If you need to shower in the morning than by all means do it but don’t neglect organizing what to wear as mentioned in #5.
7) If you are a blogger there is nothing better than having fresh content streaming through your feed for your readers to enjoy with there morning coffee. Especially on a Monday!
Those are a few quick tips to anyone interested in becoming an early riser. A gentleman by the name of Steve Pavlina actually wrote a great article on early rising; if it is something that interests you than give it a read.
I think right now is a good time to push the point that before you start any online undertaking please please please make sure it is something you are truly passionate about. You often won’t see results for a while so it needs to be an auto telic activity, something you enjoy doing for the sake of doing it or you’ll loose interest before anything ever materializes!
It is now 5:45 am, I’ve done this ~1000 word blog post, have to post a fresh blog review at Bloggeries and clear the forum of spam. I’m curious as readers of this blog what time you normally get your day going? The real question is how many hours do you wake up before work? (If you still have to go to work)
Remember every action has a reaction. If you want a different life from the masses you have to be different and make a different life; no one else will do it for you.
Have a great week and stay tuned for lots more,
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6 people have left comments
Good one. stumbled.
Jamy
Thanks so much; I hope many others find it a good read as well. Not sure why the formatting is awful in the summary version on front page… Thought I did everything right!
Hi Rob,
I wonder for how long you have been practicing wake up early? and what time you go to bed to wake up in the 5a.m? Don’t you think we shall follow our biological clock?
Hi Rob,
I wonder for how long you have been practicing wake up early? and what time you go to bed to wake up in the 5a.m? Don’t you think we shall follow our biological clock?
Eric
That’s cool. I wish I could get up at 5am. I really have difficulty to go to bed early and getting up. What is the secret?
Thanks for the comments everyone,
@ Eric - Recently for about a week or so since the clocks got adjusted but I’ve done it in the past before. I go to bed in between 9:30-10:30PM. Ideally somewhere near that time frame when I feel tired I go with it and drift off.
@ CA - Just get up and do it. Obviously if you’re run down to start with catch up on some sleep before going for it. Keep the idea in your mind and go to bed at a reasonable hour and than one day just set your alarm…