First of all, let me just say this:
HOLY CRAP, I FINALLY HAVE MY OWN BLOG!!!
Now that we've got it out of the way let me get to the point. And the point I would like to make is that getting up early is awesome.
I am devoting my first post to this topic, because if I did not try getting up (very) early over the past week this blog wouldn't be here and I would still be one of those people who keep thinking about writing one.
I never had problems with getting up early. About a year ago I started going for a swim regularly at 7AM. This meant I had to get up around 6.30AM and that was what I defined as very early at the time. I was happy with this arrangement for a while, but recently I came to the conclusion that exercising is not the best use of my morning time. I might as well exercise in the afternoon, after work, when my mind is tired and useless, but my body is still up for it.
Years of cramming for exams and delivering projects at the last minute made me think that late at night is the time when I do my best work, but recently I started suspecting that this is just a (bad) habit. This line of thinking was reinforced when I joined ABB two months ago and started working with rafek. I was impressed with the fact that he comes to work every day at 6AM and somehow manages to stay productive and enthusiastic throughout the day. We talked about it for a while and he recommended that I have a look at Zen Habits' post about 10 Benefits of rising early. It is a great read and I wholeheartedly recommend it!
All those thoughts and interactions inspired me to conduct an experiment which I am just finishing by writing this post.
- 5.00 AM
- 4.40 AM
- 5.20 AM
- 4.30 AM
- 5.00 AM
- 9.00 AM
- 6.00 AM
Those are the times at which I got out of bed this week. Apart from Saturday, when I had to recover from staying up late, I managed to maintain a very early wake up schedule throughout the whole experiment. I got a lot of stuff done this week in the hours before starting my regular workday. It was amazing! I am so happy with the results that I am going to continue, but not as an expermient anymore. This is now going to be my standard behaviour. I can't wait to see how this affects my life (in a positive way, I hope :) ). I will report back with any observations as I move forward with this plan.