The Coffee Doesn’t Make Itself: The 4AM Wake Up Routine

In the minimal free time I possess, I sometimes find myself on Linkedin skimming job postings, friends’ new hire statuses, and relevant articles posted by people in my network. Lately articles have become more outrageously titled and questionably click-bate, not to mention a trending structure of posts so to increase click-through viewership —

spreading motivation

and addressing issues

that aren’t really issues

but more of conscious thought

with this format.

A few months back, of the more absurd sounding of posts I came across was a Forbes article titled “Why Successful People Get Up at 4am Everyday”.

“Dammit”, I thought to myself. With low expectations I read through the article, acknowledging the use of waking up early but chuckling at the sincerity of this ploy to “do more”. How much can a human actually do? I reflected how this ambitious routine would fit into my own life, almost half smiling at the idea of adding one more thing to worry about — one more thing to prepare for amongst my now 65-hour work week schedule.

But one week in and I’m feeling accomplished so far. Tired by 3pm, but that’s what coffee is for.

Two weeks ago I started getting up at 5:30, then every two days setting my alarm for 15 minutes earlier. With this, I’d average my bedtime each night 15 minutes earlier — not much of a jump at all, but still enough to get me to my 4am goal without exhaustive difference in sleep schedule. Yes, I drink a lot of coffee — but getting my top-priority work block in before the sun is up, or I’m expected to be on Slack, has me feeling prepared and confident in my ideas and work.

We’ll see if I can keep up this routine, but everything’s got to get done one way or another. And with the intense graduate school curriculum, I’m willing to try different work methodologies if it means doing everything I can in the coming months of continuous trucking.