WHO I AM RIGHT NOW:
Someone who stays up too late at night, wakes up too late in the morning, and drags ass on work until around 11 or 12. Someone who procrastinates work she dreads doing until it piles up into an unmanageable mess. Someone who exercises sporadically, even though she should be training.
WHO I WANT TO BE:
Someone who wakes up early in the morning and gets out of bed, ready for her day, right when the alarm goes off. Someone who straps on her sneakers and takes the dogs on a quick, early morning walk before feeding them & heading to the gym. Someone who, upon returning from the gym, showers, gets dressed in non-pajamas/sweats, and sits at her desk ready to tackle her day. Someone who does the work on her plate, even if it's gross accounting crap that she hates, and checks it off with minimum anxiety.
I have no idea how to get from Point A to Point B, but I'd like to start with getting up in the morning, so I'm asking you:
1. How do you get up in the morning? Alarm? Pets? Partner? Music? By all means, be specific.
2. What is the rest of your morning routine?
3. If you are NOT a morning person by choice, but have a productive morning routine anyway, how the heck did you make that happen? I want to be you!!
5 comments:
I am not a morning person at all but as you know I do accomplish a morning routine that has me at work by 9 a.m. and actually working shortly thereafter. Sometimes earlier, rarely later. My routine actually solidified around my dog and my commitment to her. She gets crazy without her walks and a crazy rottweiler is nobody's friend. So I set the alarm at 7 (or 6:30 if I have to be in at 8:30) I snooze for half an hour, I get up and walk the dog for a half an hour. I only don't do this if it's below zero. Then I feed the pets, take a shower and get ready for a half an hour. Then I go. The time I spend driving to work could be spent on a half hour workout. I would suggest scheduling morning meetings or phone calls to get you going. Videoconferences with employees count - if you do them daily at 9 a.m. you know everybody's up and working. Anyway, the key for me was making a commitment to someone other than myself, ie. my dog. The things I do for myself get blown off. The things I do for others - the dog, the meetings - I do. It's wrongheaded in a way but it works.
That's my secret. Good luck. It doesn't necessarily get easier - it's a daily discipline - but it's worth it to feel better about yourself and your day. love, amy
I am a morning person, but for me that means highly responsive to sunlight, so in the winter up here I still find it hard to get up. What works for me is having a dawn simulator alarm. I set it to hit full intensity at 6:45, and while I occasionally snooze, I am almost always up, dressed, and out the door with the dog at 7:00. After our walk, it's food for the dog, food for me, shower, fix hair and make-up, leave. The dog bit definitely helps - he knows this is the routine, so as soon as I so much as twitch a toe in the morning, he is at my side, ready to go. Once I get outside, the fresh air really helps wake me up.
Also, I am pretty disciplined about getting to bed on time. I will occasionally stay up late on a work night for a concert or other special event, but only once every few months. I also keep a similar schedule all week long. I don't get up at 6:45 on the weekend (usually), but it is pretty much impossible for me to sleep in past 8:00, even if I've been up late.
If you are naturally nocturnal, you may not really need to become a morning person to accomplish the other changes. Some of these things go together: Exercising regularly rather than sporadically will give you more mental energy to tackle the annoying aspects of work (as long as you are also giving your body enough rest).
Hi, Doll--since I`ve "retired" I find I waste more time than ever, but my part-time antique "business" has made me use time better.
As far as the morning exercise routine goes, I find that going to a scheduled Class at a regular time in the morning is best. Some classes at 9:00 are better than others, but the routine is good. Also, you meet people who come all the time and that is encouraging. Don`t be so hard on yourself, Hon. You`re a dynamo!! Love, Mom
I second alison - a good workout is the key to feeling fully tired at night. If you can make yourself crash out by 11 PM, you'll be more likely to wake up refreshed at 7 or 8.
Though I recognize the value of exercising first thing in the morning - I can't do it. First off, I have to be at work by 7 and any pre-7 AM activity is, in my mind, unholy.
I try to workout at lunch because:
a) it gives me more energy for the rest of the day and
b) it's more fun than doing that annoying accounting work.
Alison is also correct about getting to bed at the same time every night. Your body takes 21 days to build a habit. I have a rule that I have to turn off the computer at 11 PM no matter what. Sometimes I even set a timer - otherwise it's 1 AM by the time I even notice.
By the way, how IS the training going?
I've been thinking about this for a couple days. Unfortunately, I've come up with nothing. I wake up before my alarm goes off nearly every morning - but I have no idea how to become productive. In fact, I don't think it has anything to do with being a morning person or a night person - but rather being somehow self-directed rather than self-possessed. I'm not really productive in the morning, afternoon, evening, late night - ever really. For me it's more like that old chestnut where I can move half-way to my goal. The next day, half-way, so-on and so-forth until I'm really, really close to where I think I could be, but there's still half-way to go. This can literally eat at me until I'm wide awake 5 minutes before the alarm goes off at 7:15 AM and I'm still in at 11:00 AM and thinking I should wake Erica up so we can go to brunch. However, I'm still there paralyzed by the fact that no matter what I do I'm only going to get half-way as far as I think I should. It's somewhat maddening.
So today I'm happy with the fact that I did 25 sit ups when I got up, happy that I installed SQL server today on a server I know I'm going to need later and happy that I upgraded my blog software. I'm still crushed with the thought that I could have done so much more or so much better. I know it's not rational - but now that it's 12:08 and I've officially done something productive for Tuesday (posted to puffpiece); I can be happy about that.
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