Getting up at the crack of dawn is so much more than a productivity hack
Afew weekends ago, I drove to Vermont with my best friends from college. We studied at a small college in the Green Mountains, and adore the landscape and community.
We planned to swim, hike, drink good beer, and eat lots of maple creemees. We’d only be there for one full day, so I wanted to start our nostalgic summer joy early. Like, 6:00 a.m. early.
My friends, decidedly, did not.
So, when my internal alarm clock woke me up at 5:30 a.m., I quietly pulled on workout gear, snuck out of our one-room Airbnb, and sealed the door behind me. The air was cool without a trace of New York City humidity. The light was low and pink. A nearby stream audibly bubbled, and I’m pretty sure I heard a frog croak. I looked at my phone: no notifications. With my dog back in the city, I had no one to walk, feed, or take care of.
I took a single deep breath, then another.
I thought about going for a run, then began walking instead. My feet dampened in the dewy grass outside our apartment. By the time I got to town, my head was a bit achy and tired. The week had been full of clients, interviews, and anxiety. Life stuff. I needed coffee.
Sitting alone at the one shop open before 7:00 a.m., I contemplated my obsession with waking up early. My childhood was defined by my annoyance with my parents’ and brother’s inability to wake up at dawn. “The most successful people in the world wake up before six,” my mom would always say, before reminding me to never wake her up before nine. While my family found comfort in sleeping late and lounging around in the mornings, I always found myself up, dressed, and eager for action by seven.
While this imbalance is likely the result of a simple difference in when my family and I feel most energized (it’s true, they’re usually up working, chatting, and partying far later than I’ve ever been), it often manifested in frustration: While they perceived my early-morning energy as rushing them, or stressing them out, I perceived their late-morning lounging as lackadaisical and boring.
Myjob as a writer and full-time consultant never requires me to be at work before 9:30 a.m. (especially considering most of my clients are three hours behind me, on the west coast). My partner would rather sleep in. And if I don’t leave the bed, my pug won’t either. So there’s no real reason for me to wake up early, as much as I might want to.
I’ve read several articles about the productivity benefits of waking up early — and I’m sure you have, too. These stories tout the benefits of getting out of bed to conquer your to-do list — and they mostly annoy me, because they cheapen what feels like a sacred ritual. Waking up early just to Get More Shit Done is the perfect example of hustle porn; it’s a lot like tech bros’ obsession with listening to podcasts at 2x speed (which, unironically, makes humans sound like robots). Or starving yourself because Elon Musk says it’ll make you smarter.
“This idea that unless you are suffering, grinding, working every hour of every day, you’re not working hard enough… is one of the most toxic, dangerous things in tech right now,” explains Reddit co-founder and Initialized Capital partner Alexis Ohanian, who is actively anti-hustle. The cult of working overtime is “such utter bullshit,” Ohanian says. “It has deleterious effects not just on your business but on your well-being.”
So, is there any actual value to waking up early? Why do I do it, and why should you? Should you just let yourself sleep in, much like you should just buy the damn coffee?
As someone who’s woken up at the ass-crack of dawn since I was a kid, and become moderately successful (whether coincidentally or not), here’s how I make use of my early-morning hours.
I do nothing
When my friends finally* woke up that weekend, heavy-eyed from the previous night’s beers and confused about why I tortured myself by roaming around before sunrise, they asked a simple question: What do you even do when you wake up so early?
It’s a good question, and frankly, it stumped me.
I don’t do the same thing every morning. I mostly agree with Forge writer Chaunie Brusie, who argues that your morning routine doesn’t matter. I tried to freewrite every morning last year, and stopped after a week. Sometimes I wake up early because I’m really anxious and can’t sleep (this is common and deserves more attention). Most days, however, I wake up without a plan.
“Honestly, I usually go to my kitchen, make coffee, then sit and stare at Chester [my pug], while he does weird things and begs for food,” I told my friends.
Most mornings I wake up early to do absolutely nothing. I’m not productive. I don’t meditate. I just exist.
They found this answer absurd, but it’s real. More often than not, my partner and I sit pretty quietly (not intentionally silent or meditating, just calm), and sip coffee. He eats a peanut butter sandwich with sliced bananas inside, and I spoon Greek yogurt out of the container. Our pug sits next to us, or on our laps, making weird faces, as pugs do.
This is to say, most mornings I wake up early to do absolutely nothing. I’m not productive. I don’t meditate. I just exist. Lots of productivity experts would deem this a sacrilegious waste of time: I could be preparing for the day, writing checklists, or getting more sleep! What these critics miss is that, as Joe Fassler writes in “The Urgent Case for Boredom,” doing nothing is an essential element of human evolution, creativity, problem-solving, and personal growth. Studies show that people who are forced to do boring tasks are substantially more inventive in subsequent, more creative tasks. And as Fassler explains, despite today’s boredom-averse society, the benefits of boredom are obvious: “Boredom inspires us to seek out new terrain and new approaches when our work or circumstances become mundane. It leads to exploration, variation, and improvement,” he writes.
If you have a busy job, being bored at work is difficult. Even if you do get bored at work, you probably feel bad about it. Personally, I spiral into thinking I should pursue a more interesting career, or try harder.
This isn’t the case early in the morning. When you wake up earlier than you need to, you quite literally add hours to your day. You give yourself time to be bored without feeling bad about it.
Some mornings, petting at my pug or idly sipping coffee, I come up with great story ideas, funny tweets, or the motivation to text a friend I haven’t spoken to in awhile. Other mornings I’m just bored for an hour. I’ll read an article or two, listen to a song, stare at the wall, then shower and go to work. Neither situation is better or worse. They’re equally peaceful in their boredom, and they leave me clear minded and primed for innovation going into the busier hours.
*They woke up around 8 a.m., to their credit. Still, late!
I move, or make
If science has proven anything over the past few decades, it’s that exercise is fundamental to mental and physical health, lifespan, heart disease prevention, and weight control. I don’t need to convince you that exercise is good for you.
What’s frustrating is that most of us cannot find time to work out. For my first few years at work, I fell within this cohort. I was too tired after work, and dipping out mid-day wasn’t an option. Workout classes in New York City are grossly expensive, and being around tons of fit people stresses me out.
Waking up earlier is a simple solution. When you create more hours in the day, you have more hours available to work out — without the stress of doing it with the rest of the world.
Exercising first thing in the morning, like any skill, takes time. In the beginning it will suck. You will hate it, and you will feel tired and nauseous. After a couple of weeks, you will look forward to it. There’s just one catch: If you try to squeeze in working out without waking up earlier than usual, you will feel extremely rushed and stressed out. You need to wake up earlier to give yourself space to exercise without compromising the time you need to get ready for work.
Nor should you force yourself to exercise when you don’t want to. I used to run every morning, and it got obsessive. Now, when I wake up early and feel up for it, I run for however long I want. Running gives me space to feel healthy and happy, and running early avoids summer heat. But that’s just me — whether you’re into yoga, biking, hiking, swimming, lifting, or even CrossFit, the goal is to buy more hours for movement before you (probably) sit at a desk all day.
Plus, if you move early you get to see views like this one (6:30 a.m. in Prospect Park, June 26, 2019):
I spend time alone
Throughout my early and midtwenties — a period defined by near-constant changes in work, relationships, health, friendships, finances, and location — morning alone time was an invaluable resource in helping me plan and evaluate my life choices. Our minds are clearer in the morning, unbiased by all the shit that happens during the day. Sleep usually mitigates anxieties, frustrations, or fears we go to bed with. This makes the morning a perfect time to simply think about where you’re at and where you want to go.
Whether you’re sitting at home, walking around the neighborhood, or exercising outside (morning rats tend to occupy the gym), there’s something truly unique about waking up early and being alone. In our hyper-connected society, being alone is just as rare as being bored. That’s very different than feeling lonely — which has been classified as a mental health epidemic, widely felt regardless of whether you’re surrounded by friends or family.
Waking up before most people you know (or follow on social media) gives you an invaluable opportunity to be alone without feeling lonely. This is primarily because in the wee hours of the morning, there’s nothing to feel FOMO about, no one to respond to your messages, and usually, no one to hang out with even if you wanted to.
Spending time alone also has countless research-backed benefits, most of which center on introspection and self-awareness, which are intimately connected to self-confidence. Another underrated benefit of spending time alone, as psychotherapist Amy Morin explains in Forbes, is giving yourself space for short- and long-term life planning, free from the influence and opinions of others.
Waking up before most people you know (or follow on social media) gives you an invaluable opportunity to be alone without feeling lonely.
“Most people spend a lot of time planning weddings and vacations but never plan how to get the most out of life,” writes Morin. “Spending time alone can give you a chance to ensure there’s a purpose to all of your hustling and bustling. Quiet space provides an opportunity think about your goals, your progress, and changes you want to make in your life.”
I’m intimate with my partner
By intimacy, I don’t mean “sex.” Intimacy can mean taking the temperature on your relationship: asking your partner how they’re feeling, or what their week has been like. Intimacy can be lying together quietly, or an easy massage. Intimacy can be calmly discussing an issue you haven’t found time to address. And of course, intimacy can be wanted, consensual physical contact.
Personally, early-morning intimacy for my partner and I is nothing more than the silent moments of being together — while sipping coffee, laughing when our pug jumping on our laps, and appreciating the early sounds of the city, before the sirens start. Intimacy is highly psychological, and disconnecting from life and job stress to be present with your partner can be very difficult during the day, or after work. Personally, I’m just too exhausted to connect with my partner on this level at night.
Ample research shows that physical and emotional intimacy are key to long-term relationship satisfaction. But unlike the theatrics we’re sold in rom-coms, intimacy doesn’t just happen. Like anything valuable, intimacy and pleasure require time, attention, and work. Waking up earlier to make space for intimacy is an overlooked way to help you and your partner feel seen, wanted, and cared for.
Personally, I’ve found that waking up early is the easiest, cheapest, and most accessible means of pausing life’s rush and prioritizing the self-care I’ve sidelined during the workday. When I wake up early, I can see myself more clearly, and that makes me happier, if only for a few hours.
Waking up early will not make you millions of dollars or catapult your career. It will not solve your depression, resolve your insecurities, or land you the perfect date. Waking up early will give you more time and space to live quietly and peacefully, though, and the value of that opportunity cannot be overstated.
This story is part of The Art Of, an ongoing series that supplies you with instructions for living.
No comments:
Post a Comment