6 Things I Do Before 6 AM

I know a lot of people stress about getting the most out of their day. I know I definitely do. You spend all day running around putting out small fires and by the time 6 PM rolls around you feel like you haven’t even begun to tackle the major items you set out to accomplish that morning. As a freelancer, I find that if I can do some quick “housekeeping” items in the morning, it really gets me squared away for the day, so I can concentrate on whatever project I’m currently working on. So here are the 6 things I do before 6 AM.

1. Do a quick global heat signature scan for dragons, or check Instagram. These days Instagram can actually be quicker. Especially after the dragon nesting incident in New York, people have become obsessed with getting a dragon photo bomb shot. This never used to be my first housekeeping item, but with global warming upsetting so many established dragon nests, they’ve been really active over the last couple of years.
2. Check Twitter for Trolls. It’s a funny thing about Trolls, they actually leave behind a digital footprint as foul as their breath. If someone gives them access to a network, they tend to swarm, and they can literally eat users alive. My daily routine is to check their common haunts to see if any one herd is getting out of hand and flag them for my contact in Vladivostok (there’s really stubborn troll population there) who will then do a quick night cleansing run with an elephant gun (usually the most effective weapon in this situation).
3. Read some headlines and flag an article to read later during my lunch break. I subscribe to so many industry publications, it’s kind of getting out of hand, but thankfully I have a Kindle so no matter where I am, I can read about the latest breeding patterns of griffins or how a spate of recent Chupacabra attacks were mistaken for cartel violence and the subtle clues that eventually gave it away.
4. Catch up on some correspondence with various panicking Interior Ministers. I really have to do some triage at this point because I can’t be everywhere at once and it’s not always a genuine emergency. So you have an outbreak of pixies running around your city, shorting out electrical wire and hacking street lights, yeah it’s annoying, but it’s not as serious as a deadly outbreak of lycanthropy. Sometimes I pass on some referrals, or sometimes I offer some expert advice via email or Skype in lieu of actually handling the problem myself in person.
5. Scan the usual haunts (Reddit, paranormal forums, tumblr) for evidence of unicorns. My mother insists they’ve been extinct for years, but I’m still holding out hope.
6. Head to bed for a few more hours sleep. I just get up that early when I’m in the US so I can have some relatively timely correspondence with Europe. Who the hell wants to be up at 6AM? I usually start my actual work day around 10 AM, or noon if I know it’s going to be a late night.