waking up early | Richard H. Harris

Tag Archives: waking up early

by harrisrh | May 19, 2017 · 7:17 pm

The First 3 Hours

Perhaps I’m showing my age (and the fact that I don’t have children), but I actually fly out of bed most mornings, which is usually between 3-5 a.m. As I’ve grown older, I’ve come to appreciate the early early morning time. The streets are quiet, nobody’s using their stupid leaf blower or lawn mower, the birds are chirping (at least they are at this time of year), and I get a serious amount of s*** done in a very short period of time.

Srinivas Rao agrees with me and takes it one step further. In a piece titled “The First 3 Hours of Your Day Can Dictate How Your Life Turns Out,” Srinivas argues that “I get a disproportionate amount of value from these hours, and it’s not a coincidence.”

True, truer and truest!

To be Frank, Earnest and Curt, a lot of us are slaves to others from the moment we wake up, assuming this is around 7 a.m., a pretty standard time for students and workers to roll out of bed. We’re slaves to crying babies, hungry kids/pets, pending deadlines, rush hour traffic, unresolved household issues – the list is endless, really.

But for those of us who wake up at an ungodly hour, just having those couple of extra hours to ourselves can be a godsend. As Srinivas details in the above piece, this is due to the following five reasons. In the pre-dawn hours…

1.Your Willpower is at its Highest

2. Your Mind is Less Scattered

3. You’re Less Likely to Be Interrupted

4. You Increase The Availability of Time

5. You Start Your Day With a Sense of Accomplishment

Like anything in life, waking up crazy early takes a little practice, but you won’t regret it in the long run. Whether it’s reading a book as the sun comes out, working on your computer, preparing that evening’s dinner far in advance, or cleaning your home, you are certain to get much, much, much more done in those two or three hours than you could ever hope to accomplish at a “normal” time of day.

The Secret Hour of Creativity (& Other Hidden Gems)

I used to dread hearing my alarm clock go off at 5:30 a.m. I’d stand in the shower, half-asleep, and paw at my face like a blind cat. Grains of sand as big as boulders would fall from puffy eyes and go running down the drain before I traipsed back to my bedroom, still 33.3% asleep, and threw on the day’s monkey suit. By 7 .a.m. I was standing at a lectern and teaching my first class. Begrudgingly.

Things started changing as I got older and – probably more importantly – began doing something (cue Derek Zoolander’s voice) that I really, really, really wanted to do: write creatively.

As self-destructive as it might sound, I now relish waking up at 4 a.m. and pounding the keys. If you’ve never tried waking up at this hour for more than a few days (and of your own volition), then take a gander at this article from someone who tried it for a week: “7 Things Happened When I Got Up At 4 AM Every Day For A Week.”

In a related article by Karen Cicero entitled “10 Mistakes You’re Making Every Time You Go To Bed,” Ms. Cicero also points out some things you may not have considered about your bedtime habits.