New year, new resolutions. No time seems to be better to build new habits. A habit I always wanted to start in my life was getting up early or earlier and creating a morning routine. And it really did improve my life. Here’s why.
Most of us coders seem to be night owls. But I figured that many famous and successful people get up quite early in the morning. You can even read of times like 4:30! Crazy.
Since I have to be in the office somewhere between 9 o’clock and 9:30, I usually got up at around 8. Stressful bathroom stay, getting dressed, making some – if any – breakfast and getting out of the house. Sounds familiar?
Needless to say that with a start in the day like that, you arrive in the office very stressed.
Quite often I came across the idea of the early bird. Like Benjamin Franklin said:
“Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”
But is this really true?
As a software developer who can’t stop coding in his spare time, I always struggled with my side projects. You know the drill. Work, housework, friends, family, exercise, grocery shopping, all that stuff has to be done and then you also want to find the time for your side projects. Not to mention other hobbies like playing video games for instance.
I tried different ways. Adding one or two hours after work when there was an open window, doing many hours on the weekends, but in the long run, this was not fulfilling and did not really work out. The breaks between these hours have been too long. Then I came across the idea of spending only 30 minutes for your side projects – but every single day, or at least on workdays.
That was something I wanted to give a try. And I tried to spend these 30 minutes in the evenings after work, with no success. I was either too tired, or I came home too late, or there was something else going on or I just wanted to spend some time with my fiancée.
After that, I found this book: The Miracle Morning. And it hit me. I always wanted to try getting up early and implement some kind of morning routine into my life. The content of the book promises to transform your life with the help of the magical time before 8 am. So I tried that.
Believe me, getting up early when you’re not used to it is very hard. But I figured it’s crucial to know the right reason why you want to get up. When you know that, it’s a lot easier. And when your side projects are important to you and if working on them makes you happy, you will get up early.
You get quiet time for yourself. It’s amazing when (almost) everyone else is sleeping and you can focus on yourself and whatever you want to do or create (like this article here for instance).
Even better, now it’s not only 30 minutes. It’s more than an hour I really enjoy to get up early. Of course, the downside is, that you have to go to bed earlier, too. But somehow, it works. And honestly, is it really a downside to got to bed early? Usually, I’m not productive anyways and burn my time by watching TV which doesn’t benefit me in any way. It is a miracle.
So maybe, if you still need a New Year’s resolution, try to get up earlier. Maybe just 15 minutes for starters. And you could also try to implement some kind of morning routine into your life. Grab a cup of coffee or tea and write a line of code, 100 words for a blog post or play a video game for God’s sake if that’s what your missing in your daily life. The morning is perfect to do the things you’re otherwise missing out in your life.
Happy New Year!
The post The Miracle of a Morning Routine appeared first on Patrick's blog.
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Latest comments (41)
Hey Patrick, this is awesome.
Thanks! Glad you like it. :)
Great article. I have been trying to get up early and go for run by the water near by. I did it couple of times in past weeks and definitely one of the best thing I could have done.
Hey, Thanks!
Glad it works out for you! It takes a whole lot of discipline to go for a run early in the morning. Keep it up! :)
Finished the book this weekend and I'm on Day 2 of practicing Life SAVERs!
It is very nice, but respecting your circadian rythm is extremely important not only for focus but for health. And science seems to point that some are morning people and some are evening people, and there is nothing to do about it.
Of course we can make an effort but it's bad in the long run. The job life is unfortunately made by and for the early birds, as the evening owls would require to start later. I would definitely not recommend waking up even earlier if it goes against your natural rythm.
Baby wakes up at 5 and she's really "nice" since she will drink her milk and play mostly alone during the first hours, so I will give a try to this morning routine. Right now, after having a baby, I feel like I have no more free time at all, trying to keep the "single" life and failing completely.
I keep my fingers crossed. But don't pressure yourself. Even 15 free minutes can make a big difference.
And congrats on the baby! :)
When I was little I had a book that paraphrased the quote slightly...
This is quite interesting. I did go through a period of waking up early, but it helped to have the morning sun blissfully streaming onto my bed each morning. I wonder if you have been doing this long enough to know whether this routine is easy to implement during winter, when it doesn't get light until late in the morning?
This is just great, I'm always struggling with the fact of getting up early. I wake up at 6am most of the days, but to complete everything I should get up by 4 am. As you said most of us are really used to be owls, so the first thing is to learn to go to sleep early.
My issue with waking up early (apart of how hard it is) is that when I had some free time before I go to work I get so absorbed on what I'm doing that I can't leave it. When I code or play before going to work I always end up loosing the train and end up more stressed up. I just don't want that flow to end and always squish 5 more minutes that I should.
I finally found what works for me, I moved far away from the city, now I have 1h+ commuting time most of it on train so I can just code or play there. There's no 5 more minutes, when train arrives to my station I have to get down.
Following @imthedeveloper my schedule is
8:00 - wake up & shower
8:55 - drive to train station (time to add tasks for the day talking to the phone)
9:15 - train picks me up (time to code or play)
10:15 - working day
14:00 - launch time
19:15 - train back to home (time to read or organize my life)
20:15 - drive to home (nice moment to think about the day)
20:30 - home
Then I play with my kid and/or watch TV until dinner is ready (wife is chef, she won't let me cook), we usually go to bed at midnight.
If I'm specially fresh I might play or do something else until 1am or 2am but usually I need 8 hours sleep, I used to sleep 10+ hours when I was unemployed so that's it for me.
I'm in Spain anyway, here the schedule is delayed from north Europe or EEUU a few hours.
Great post, I cannot agree more! As a senior in high school with has a software development job, soccer, and other school clubs, it can be hard to find time during the week for my freelance and side projects. I recently started getting up at 4 AM so I have two extra hours of work before my usual 6 AM for class. I get extremely tired around 9PM, which I like a lot more than being up past midnight.