This is an article for all the people who want to start a new working routine by waking up very early in the morning.
It’s an article suitable as well for those who want to experiment with waking up early and do something more with their lives.
I chose to write this piece because I am as well, still experimenting with waking up at 6 a clock every day. It’s not an easy task. Especially if you have a 2-year-old kid who has so much energy during the day, a kid that as a parent, you need to provide companionship for, be there, be present in their life. So, when the bedtime comes, there must be some strategy and routine behind it.
And, I can’t always be sure that it would be possible for me to go to sleep and 9 PM and wake up at 6 AM in the morning, every day of the week.
This is the main reason I chose to do this experiment and why I continue experimenting with it. Also, I chose to write this article because I am documenting my process which led me to be able to share some actionable tips that might be of help to you too.
First of all, always ask yourself: Why do you want to wake up early in the morning?
What’s the reason you want to wake up early?
Do you want to read a book? Do you want to start writing on a personal blog? Do you want to edit your photos? Do you want to do some exercise? Do you want to write your book or your script?
Think about the real reason why you want to wake up early in the morning. Then do it!
I have a clear WHY for which I’m waking up early in the morning. I’m not just cutting my sleep hours just because it’s cool to wake up and tell everybody that I woke up at 6 a clock. I have a routine and a goal for each of my mornings. I know that I only have 2 hours to do what I want to do, so that’s why I need to stay close to my schedule.
Be intentional with your mornings.
Being intentional with your mornings means that you need to think about what you want to do. And, sometimes, this starts before you wake up early in the morning. For example, I always think ahead about what I want to write on this blog, prepare the next texts for my Instagram Carousels or Linkedin, or write some ideas for the podcast I’m about to record every week.
However, it’s not only about the job I want to do for my side projects. It’s also the fact that I love what I’m doing, without having enough time to work for these projects. That’s why I’m waking up early in the morning: to work for my side projects.
My days are divided into 3 parts: early mornings are for myself, then during the day I’m working for Bannersnack and after this, I’m spending time with my family until we go to bed, at night.
This means that I can have some ME time in the morning. I can do whatever I want. Even if I’m only reading some articles, reading a book, writing ideas, and articles. It’s my time and I need to be intentional with it.
Have a good coffee or good tea – select the products you are buying.
This is another reason why I can wake up so early. And my goal is to try to wake up at 5 o’clock every morning. I’m still working on it, trying to figure it out how I can achieve this goal and still have the energy for the rest of the day.
I love coffee. Even more, I love good coffee. That’s why sometimes I’m not buying just coffee, I’m investing in coffee. Yes, that sounds kinda crazy, but I’m investing in good coffee because when I wake up early in the morning, I want to have the best coffee I can get. And I don’t have the amount of time to prepare it: turn on the coffee machine, grind the coffee, wait till the perfect temperature for the coffee machine is set, prepare the coffee, and all the important steps a professional barista is doing. I’m more on turning the coffee machine, tap that button, put the coffee cup in its place, and wait for it to just pour in my cup.
As a consequence, I recommend that if you want to wake up early in the morning, invest in the products you like to consume at that hour. Because even the idea of getting that good coffee or good tea will make you get up from the bed. For me, it’s working. Maybe it will work for you as well.
Meditate
Even if I have a busy mind in the morning, I need to have a healthy soul. That’s why after I prepare my coffee, I stay at my desk and read my Bible, meditate and pray. This helps me disconnect for a few minutes from my professional projects and have a more in-depth thinking.
And, it seems that nowadays, everybody talks about meditation and how it can help you.
They talk about how meditating on your own thoughts, clearing your mind and just not thinking about stuff can help you.
For me, it’s more like thinking about something bigger than me, something bigger than this whole universe, and just reading the Bible from where I get my inspiration and my motivation. It’s helping me have a healthy soul.
Stay away from distractions
If you wake up in the morning because you have work to do, then stay away from distractions. I found myself so many times waking up early in the morning and wasting time on every social media platform where I have an account just to see what others have posted.
Just one more tweet to read. One more scroll. One more swipe. Just one more social media platform.
Just one more minute.
And guess what, I wake up at 6 o’clock in the morning just to waste 40 minutes on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Linkedin, Pinterest, Youtube, Instagram Stories, TikTok and other platforms.
How did I feel after those 40 minutes?
Miserable.
Because I felt like I made fun of myself. Because I wasn’t disciplined with my time and I was distracted by other stuff.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that social media is a bad thing for your life. No. I’m saying that everything needs to have a specific moment, a specific right time, and a right context.
I don’t think that you want to wake up early in the morning just to check out your social media account unless you are a social media specialist, you have your living on social media and that’s the main side project you are working on. But even so, this means that you need to focus on creating and growing your platform, not just consuming its content and checking out what others have done while you were sleeping.
Maintain a regular sleep schedule
You can’t wake up early in the morning if you don’t go to sleep early in the night. And I’m not saying that if you want to wake up at 6 a clock, you must go to sleep at 8pm.
But this really depends on everybody’s lifestyle and how they can manage their sleep schedule.
For example, if I want to wake up at 6 o’clock in the morning, I’m going to sleep before 10 pm. This means that I have 8 hours of sleep scheduled right from the start. And even if I go to sleep at 11pm, I still have 7 hours of sleep per night, and this means that I have enough hours slept for the day to come.
The hardest part is to try to keep this discipline for days, weeks, months and years. And what I found out for myself is that on the weekend it is good to sleep as much as you can. That’s why sometimes on my weekends, I wake up at 8, because that’s when my daughter is waking up as well. So this means that I have slept almost 10 hours, which is really great.
And if you do this for the first time, I recommend you to try to make it one step at a time. It’s hard in the beginning, but it will become easier as you are intentional day by day with it.
Also, this article and many other articles from my blog were written early in the morning, before 8 a clock. Because that’s the time when I’m most productive.
Therefore, here you go: my own experiment on how I’m trying to wake up every day at 6 o’clock to work on my side projects.
That’s how and why I am able to do so many things.
Let me know in a comment about what’s your morning schedule system.
How can you wake up early in the morning, why do you wake up and what do you want to accomplish if you wake up so early?
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