I think mornings suck.
There is little anyone is going to do to change my mind, because after years of trying I couldn’t even change my own mind.
I feel like I’m barely alive.
I’m in a fog.
A zombie…
You constantly read articles that tell you about all the wildly successful people starting their day at 4 AM.
They’ve cooked their breakfast, hit the gym, built a robot that can cure cancer, and done their grocery shopping all before your first of many alarms you’ve set has gone off.
These people make you feel lazy for waking up when you do.
It’s not intentional. They just have their s*** together and you feel like you don’t because you’re not more like them.
HOWEVER, the conclusion I’ve come to is that people like us don’t necessarily NOT have it together. We just function differently.
I’ve tried for years to push myself to become more of a morning person via all the tips and hacks that you’ve read on the web.
Such as:
- Make a detailed list of the things you need to do.
- Meal Prep on Sundays
- Turn on the Light when you wake up
- Don’t Take Naps
- Wake up when your alarm goes off and don’t hit snooze.
- Run 10,000 miles before 5 am.
- Meditate to gregorian chanting.
- Wear shirts that say “rise and grind”
- Bla.
- Bla.
- Bla bla bla.
If you’re like me, you probably ALWAYS go to sleep with the best of intentions.
Then 4AM rolls around and the fact that you’ve only gotten 3-4 hours of sleep kicks in.
Then you audibly say “NOPE” and set your alarm to allow for a few more hours of sleep, or worse, hit snooze in thirty minute intervals and feel like crap for the rest of the day.
Then you get up afterwards, feeling guilty that you’ve not accomplished the goal you set. Then you start your day already feeling deflated, unaccomplished, and unconfident.
Sound productive? It shouldn’t.
It’s not.
It feels unnatural because it is.
I’m not a morning person.
I want to want to be.
But at my core, I truly don’t want to be.
Guess what?
That’s ok. I’m built differently from those people who crush it before the sun comes up.
I said to hell with the extra-early alarms recently after I did a bit of research and realizing that I could crush it just as hard being a night-owl.
Here are a few interesting examples I found:
- I read an article on Nature.Com about a study conducted by Nature Communications in 2016. They performed a Genome-Wide Association Analysis of 89,283 individuals reporting to be “morning people”. They identified 15 areas of the genome related to what they called “morningness” or capacity to be a morning or night person. I am not smart enough to understand all of that… but as you can tell there are a TON of factors at play.
- Creative types are more likely to be night dwellers.
- According to a 2011 study by Preckel, Fanzis & Lipnevich, Anastasiya & Schneider night owls typically are better at memory-based tasks, and tend to process new information faster.
- A 2009 Science Journal study shows that night owls actually enjoy more hours in a given day than morning people.
The list goes on.
Do a quick Google search and you’ll find a bunch too.
The problem?
You don’t see a lot of articles circulating about how to make the most of your time as a night-owl.
So here’s what I’ve found personally helps me…
Disclaimer: I’m in no way claiming to be perfect with this article. Just sharing what has helped…
Stop with the Multiple Alarms: Let’s say you’re like me and you’ve accepted that you’re insanely bad at mornings. That means you no longer need the alarm at 4, 5, 6…and so on… ditch the “over-achiever” alarms and set just ONE that is realistic for YOU
I’m not telling you to let yourself be late for work… but find how long your typical morning ritual takes, how long your commute is, and wake up in time to get yourself to work without rushing.
Stop trying to push yourself to be a fake morning person.
Your morning routine can make or break your day too… why not take care of the parts requiring rational thought during your productive time? That brings me to my next item…
Build the Day: Again… mornings suck… but most of us have no choice but to do them somewhat. What I do is set an alarm in my phone that goes off every night at 10:00 PM that flashes the words “BUILD THE DAY” across my screen. It seems like a lot, but it usually doesn’t take more than 10-20 minutes and basically is the equivalent and moving part of your morning routine to the nighttime.
Here’s what that looks like:
- Set aside my outfit for the morning on a shelf in the bathroom. One of the worst parts of my morning used to be looking for two matching socks to wear while I’m barely cognizant enough to know what a sock is.
- Pack my lunch or at least plan what I’m having (see “tactical leftovers”). I’m still working on the breakfast thing…
- Pack my backpack/day-bag with everything I’ll need for work. It’ll have my phone chargers, padfolio, business cards, laptop, etc. and put it near the door. That way I don’t need to look for ANYTHING. The last thing I need to do in the AM is scour through my house in a zombified fog.
- Pack my gym bag for my workout after work and put this near the door. Sometimes I’ll even throw in a load of laundry because this reminds me that there’s something stinky in my bag that I would have otherwise forgotten about.
- (MOST IMPORTANT ONE) CHECK MY CALENDAR AND SET REMINDERS. I like to micromanage the crap out of my digital calendar. If you and I have ever done so much as grabbed a cup of coffee together, chances are your name has been in my calendar. At this stage I’ll figure out the best time to eat lunch in between appointments, the best time to hit the gym once work has quieted down for the day, etc. This way I have a rough idea what the day is going to look like before it’s even happened. Does it always work out perfectly how I’ve scheduled? No. Not at all. But planning in this level of detail actually helps me free up more time to do other things as I’m spending less time asking myself, “Ok, what now?” Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky have a very interesting book called “Make Time” that I read and loved about this concept. Check it out! https://maketime.blog
- Leave myself reminders on sticky-notes on the last thing I look at before I leave the house…the door. This is usually “Don’t forget your lunch” or “Bro, You’re Awesome”.
Following this saves me a ton of time in the morning, when nothing makes sense.
ABSOLUTELY Take Naps…Tactfully of Course: Naps are awesome and I hate the articles that tell you otherwise. Studies show that daytime naps once or twice a week can reduce risk of heart attack and make you more productive overall. If I’m in a fog when I’m trying to write or solve a complex issue, sometimes I’ll have a cup of coffee, rock a 20-30 minute nap and wake up refreshed and ready to tackle the issue at hand. Check out this article on coffee naps. I do it a ton and it helps.
I feel I should disclaim that I’m not advocating for sleeping on your keyboard while you should be working… but if you have an hour for lunch you could be using naps to your advantage.
Get Important Stuff Done at Night:
Stop trying to do the most important stuff first thing in the morning if you’re a night owl. Stick all the mundane items in your first mental slot, while you’re still sipping your morning coffee.
This is the perfect time for spreadsheets, expense reports, listening to your boss’s story about his trip to Bora Bora, etc.
I’m talking about all the stuff you NEED to get done, but could realistically do inebriated.
After some trial and error you’ll get a sense of when your peak productive hours are.
Personally, my peak productivity hours are from 2-7 PM and then again from 9-1 AM. I typically have a gap where I get hungry… so I use that time to prepare and eat dinner. If you walk into my house between 7 and 9 PM, chances are I’m stuffing my face.
Again… not saying to not work in the morning, just leave the complex issues that require the most creativity for when you’re the most creative.
Tactical Leftovers:
I decided that I will NEVER be one of those people that wants to spend their entire Sunday cooking so they can stack the little black containers in the fridge.
Nope.
Not my style. I hated every second of it.
However, while I don’t always have time to cook a nice dinner for myself each night, I do have the time SOME nights.
What is meal prep but ‘tactical leftovers’?
I’ve gotten in the habit of cooking a little extra on those nights. So instead of cooking for hours on Sunday I spend a little extra time on dinner on Monday/Wednesday/Fri and make my tactical leftovers so I can spend more time using my critical night hours to my advantage.
I’m also a big fan of the meal replacement shake called Huel (no, they didn’t pay me… but I certainly wouldn’t mind a check 😀 )
This saves me time on cooking, and helps me make sure I’m getting what I need nutrition wise when I don’t have time to cook a meal.
Limit Your Content Intake (spend more time creating!):
We all love TV.
Facebook videos.
Video games (I’ve spent WAY too much time playing Red Dead Redemption 2 this month)
Stupid Smosh articles.
Food photos from Instagram.
However, these are not value add to your life. My belief is that you should set a limit to how many hours you spend consuming content, especially if you yourself are a content creator. Spending more hours consuming content than you spend creating would be the equivalent of being a professional chef that spends more time at a buffet than they do creating new recipes or cooking.
Utilize your cellphone’s activity tracking feature and you’ll see just how much time you’re wasting. The first time I did this and saw that I had spent 4 hours out of my day on Facebook, I was pretty damn upset with myself.
Spend these hours CREATING something! Write a script, draw a picture, work on that book or song, create your next Facebook ad for your business, work scheduling your social media posts for the week, go grab a late night workout and work on creating your dream physique, etc.
When I follow my own advice, I add MUCH more happiness and fulfillment to any given day.
For instance, I’ve noticed a big uptick in my daily mood when I see how I’ve been chunking away at the novel I’ve been working on.
Is it slow progress? Yes.
But it’s PROGRESS nonetheless instead of wasting time on my 10th rewatch of the Friends series on Netflix.
Schedule Emails:
Outlook has a very helpful feature that allows you to “delay” when an email gets sent. If your brain comes alive after midnight, you can use this feature for replies to clients and coworkers so that your emails send out first thing in the morning, and will be at the top of their inbox while you’re still drinking your morning coffee.
That’s all for now!
I might come and add more stuff later… but I wanted to share as I feel like it might be worth a read for some.
