Since my early days when I was small Kid I have an habit of waking up early, for me anything beyond 5 AM is late. I have been getting up at 3:55 AM and my day starts at 4 AM. People always tell me that you are lucky guy, you don’t have this in life, you don’t have that in life. When you will get married you will not get time for anything else, they also blamed their small kids for keeping them engaged. In my opinion if a task is not important to you then you will not do it and if it is really important, I mean if something really matters to you then you will give your 100% to it. The problem with people is that they crib a lot and are usually jealous of successful people. What they don’t realize is that those people who achieved success in life paid a price for that. They worked hard, gave up the comforts in their life and made sacrifices. You too need to work little harder to do things that you wish to do but never get time.
Most of us brush our teeth every morning because we know it is important of our good dental hygiene, not because we have to. Similarly if a person has to do something that really matters then he/she will do it. No matter how badly busy they are in life.
Since past few months I am getting up even earlier now. I now get up at 2:55 AM every morning. Why? because my little lovely daughter keeps me engaged all day now and I like to be with her as much as possible. Earlier I used to wake up at 4AM and work for just 2 hours and go to Gym. Now I get up at 3 AM and I work continuously till 9 AM. So I work 6 hours non stop in the morning when I am in my best mental state.
I have started going to Gym in the evenings now. During this time I do all my most important work of the day. My day routine is never certain, people call in the day, I have to go out to meet someone. The day is usually full with little activities that keep me away from doing something productive or valuable. I have done this adjustment in my schedule ever since my daughter is born. I just can’t resist playing with her during the day at the same time I also want to stay productive. So that’s why I decided to wake up 1 hour early. I do this everyday without fail.
During those 6 hours in the morning I do the hardest work, that requires lot of thinking or which is very boring work :) and rest of the day I just do tasks like reading/replying emails, doing mundane tasks that can’t be ignored. All the high intensity work is scheduled in the morning.
One tip I can give all of you is that never start working on the tasks as they come, no matter how small or easy they are. Put them in your backlog. I personally use JIRA for my startup and I put all the new tasks in the backlog. You never know when these small tasks consume your 1 hour of productive time and it is also not good to distract from your planned work.
Long story short if you are like those people who always blame lack of time for not able to do something extra then without thinking just start waking up early. No other time in the day is better than mornings. Just wake up 1 hour early in the beginning. Do whatever little you can in that 1 hour, do that everyday so to keep the pace going on. Once you are comfortable getting up 1 hour early then start waking up 15 mins early. Getting 1.5 to 2 extra interrupt free hours just for yourself can really change your life. You can really do lot of things. Work on your idea, study new programming language, or build your product.
If you do that everyday you will also feel good about your life and you will start your day on a good note.
It is well to be up before daybreak, for such habits contribute to health, wealth, and wisdom. -Aristotle
