Smoking cigarettes is normally a difficult addiction (or is it a habit?) for anyone to kick.
For me, it was rather straight forward. I just read this book.
I suspect the dread people feel while trying to quit smoking is the same as how I feel trying to wake up earlier at a more productive hour, on a consistent basis.
Tomorrow morning I will be waking up about an hour earlier than usual. I have to write my daily blog post because in the evening we have guests.
In the past two months, I have experimented with getting up considerably earlier, as a new habit.
It hasn’t stuck as something consistent, as yet. Never has.
However, armed with a specific purpose, for brief periods, I have definitely felt a few of the benefits:
- Clear thinking.
- Little to no distractions.
- An increased sense of self-confidence.
- High productivity.
- Better relations with family.
The obstacle for me becoming an early-riser, I see as two-fold:
- I regularly get home late (after giving private squash lessons).
By the time I’ve had a shower, something to eat, walked the dog, it’s often past midnight already. - I feel like a night-person. And I know I have done some of my most productive work while staying up until 3 or 4 in the morning.
In terms of trying to adopt the habit of waking up early, here is what I have done well…
I had coffee ready to be brewed.
I had my work-station all set up to go.
I adopted the Pomadoro method.
The mistake I made was to do too much too soon.
I was setting my alarm for 4:30, as established early-risers do.
However, it has since been suggested to me to start slowly.
That is, set my alarm for just 15-30 minutes earlier than usual.
Do that for a while.
Let my mind & body acclimatize.
Then push the alarm back a little more. And repeat at my own pace.
I feel this habit is worth pursuing some more.
A few days ago I wrote about my intent for less screen-time.
It has hit me that the majority of my excessive screen-time is in the evening. This nudges me to stay up later than what my body would like.
And it’s on my laptop.
Smart-phone use is negligible for me.
It seems like I could indirectly spend less time on the laptop at night by setting the intent to get up earlier in the morning.
So that’s what I plan to do.
Because adopting the early-riser lifestyle is like trying to quit smoking for me, I expect a lot of stops and starts. The challenge is physically getting up.
The worst that could happen if I try and ‘fail’ is I go back to sleeping how I am now and feel like I am having bonus sleep, like I did with my polyphasic-sleep experiment.
