Making time to exercise
I used to be a triple-snooze kind of guy.
As I decided to make exercise part of my days I had to find a way to make time for it. The rest of the world wasn’t going to pause so I could get my stretching on. It needed to support consistency so could be done most days and at about the same time and facilitate habit formation. For me, that meant it had to be early in the morning. I had to face it and become a morning person.
The nice thing about the infamous early morning, other than that it isn’t just a myth as per popular belief, is that it tends to be a quiet time. Most are still asleep and there are less distractions and opportunities for competing responsibilities or happy hours to trump exercise plans. The challenge on the other hand is, well, waking up early.
It took a bit of time but it wasn’t as hard as I originally expected to gradually shift my schedule and train myself to wake-up early. The key was the preparation the night before and going to sleep at a reasonable time, so that I could get enough quality sleep and not just move the triple-snooze to 5AM.
Caffeine intake, dinner and screen time all play a part but once the evenings start working the mornings become naturally easier. It feels great to wake up early with free time and energy to start the day rather than roll out of bed in panic after the third snooze.
There are some trade-offs but gaining insights into how to manage the energy and sleep cycle helps to plan and adjust accordingly. I find that the change meant consuming less media and having more productive and creative time. Turns out mornings are creative periods for me and, combined with exercise, I find myself doing a fair amount of my planning, strategic thinking and problem solving of personal and professional nature during the wee hours of the morning. I came to expect my morning insights and plan important activities for that time counting on the optimized state.
Even in the morning I still can’t get my grammar righ, though. I should probably look into that.