100 days waking up at 6 am
Yes, I have been waking up at 6 am for 100 days in a row, and I will keep this habit with me much more.
I have earned like 4h more a day and my day is far more productive than ever, I have more free time for myself, and believe it or not, I am sleeping more hours than before.
If I think about it, it hasn´t been that difficult compared to all the benefits that now I have achieved with this habit.
It is not the first time
I read a book about waking up at 5 am 1 year ago and did not work. I think I tried for a month but I was drained of energy and with no motivation to wake up, It was the opposite of what the book said. Something that I was doing wrong.
This time I wanted to give it a try again and the results were totally different. Gaining this habit was even easy. Same book same methodology… But why it worked this time?
I focused on the right thing
When I tried to wake up early last year I thought
I am going to wake up at 6 am to work more
Of course, I failed.
What happened is that I was working at 6 am but also at 6 pm and that does not seem like I was living the life. So of course, I quit. Waking up to work more? That´s not for me
This time I changed the point of view. To give you some context, I was visiting Italy for 3 months in my motorhome. This went through my mind.
I am going to wake up, to leave all the work done early and I can visit Italy in the evening.
Now the objective was not waking up early to work. My main goal was to work early and then have plenty of time to visit Italy. And that is a huge difference. Waking up to be able to visit an entire country for 3 months while working and earning money? That´s something I will fight for. And of course, I did it. Italy is an awesome country! you should visit
My day timetable
I did some changes to my routine, at the beginning I thought this was going to put my daily routine upside down. It wasn´t that much. One of my days looked like this. As a big picture
06:00 — 12:00 → Working hard, programming, meetings.
12:00 — 13:30 → Relax, prepare lunch, read, play videogames
13:30 — 14:30 → Have lunch, clean
14:30 — 15:30 → Relax, watch some series (I started friends for the first time)
15:30 — 16:30 → Check slack, work a bit, and close the day
16:30 — 21:30 → Visit Italy, enjoy, and take some videos with my drone
21:30 — 22:30 → Read or watch an episode or even sleep directly if needed.
What´s the difference from my previous routine?
In the end, is just that I have taken the non-productive part of my day from 21:00 to 23:00 (and sometimes more) and I put that in the morning. I am sleepy at 21:30 but that´s perfect.
Instead of working in 2 different big chunks (morning and evening) I work only in one chunk (6 to 12) and I still have time if there are leftovers or I have to help someone in the team.
Planning is important
To achieve this, planning and organizing your day is important. If not you will see yourself at 6:15 am with nothing to do and start thinking why are you in that place and questioning if the bed is not a better place.
What I do right before I turn off the alarm, is sit with my Todos and check what I planned to do today, and start with one. I usually pick one element that I like for 30 mins to get in the mood.
And prior to that, the night before I thought about and prepare what I want to achieve the next day. So I have my to-do ready for me in the morning. I use a simple to-do list and I can mark the to-dos with a star so I use those to say to my future me “Jon, these are the ones you have to do today”. It´s super effective!
My to-do list looks like this.
The starred elements are the ones I prepare for the next day. Something I like to do and does not involve a hight concentration. By 7 am I usually have all the stars ready and I can pick a bigger task. In parenthesis, there is the name of the project the task is related to.
This makes me get into action fast. After I did some writing or programming a side project I am active and then I usually prepare tea and stretch a bit, but at this moment I am willing to continue with my todos.
The benefits
You may think of hundreds of cons, but that´s your lazy part. There are not a high number of benefits, but the ones are huge! The first one is the most important
- I have plenty of time to spend on other things.
Why do you need more reasons? Time is our most precious asset. Still, there are more benefits!
- From 6 to 10 I have plenty of time with no one apart from my cat that can bother me, while the rest is sleeping I am working alone and OMG the work that I do is 3 times more productive at those hours.
- At 12 I have all my workload done. Sometimes the work that is done and how the sprint is going means that I do not have to do anything else for the day.
- I am sleeping more, from 7h and 30min to 8h every day. At night I get to bed and sleep in less than 10 seconds.
- My sleep quality has increased. I get to bed and that´s it. I have always slept well, but now I am master of deep sleeping.
What I did with that extra time
With this routine, I had plenty of time to invest in myself. These days while I was traveling I achieved to do much more things than eat pizza.
- Read, I think in these 100 days I have read more than the rest of the year.
- Start writing articles in medium (you can check other articles if you want)
- Create 1 small app I wanted to make
- Work out. I thought working out was going to be impossible while traveling and working. But 3 or 4 days a week I have plenty of time to do so.
And now I am planning to add more things, like taking back the guitar from the closet (I used to play more the guitar) or learning a new instrument (I always wanted to play drums). Even drawing is on my list.
Tips and tricks
Is not hell to do this but is not easy either. Here are some elements that has helped me to be waking up every single day since I decided.
- Leave the phone out of your bed, to turn off the alarm you should stand up and move.
- Do it, I know you will be sleepy but you get used to it. In 15mins I am awake and starting to write something.
- Do not have screens from 22:00. All we know how bad are screens at night, right?
- Plan your TV time, and know beforehand how many episodes you will watch, is 14:30 and I have time to watch 2 episodes. Stick to that.
- Think about the good stuff. Don’t think about how tired you are, turn down the table. Think about how much time will you have today to play the drums (for example)
- Have always a plan, do not wake up and improvise in the morning, that’s not useful. Have some tasks prepared for the next morning always!
Conclusion
This new habit that I earned and am maintaining is awesome to do all these things that I always wanted. My sleep is better than ever and I don´t have my life anything.
If you want to try it, give it a good opportunity, and do it for 3 months.
