Writers who have a full-time job, or family and children, usually set their writing routine very early in the morning and I am no exception to that rule. But, how can you make yourself get up from the bed that early and write?
Personally, I have never been an early bird. Quite the opposite I would often sleep almost until noon and stay up deep into the night. Although you might think that I am a night owl, the fact is that my brain works best during the first couple of hours after waking up.
So, how do I wake up
After years of failing to wake up and hitting the snooze button, I found my answer in the countdown method invented by Mel Robbins. The trick is to count down from 5 to 1 and launch yourself from the bed. She says that the trick is in the fact that your brain is not used to counting down, so you need your conscious mind to do it and once your conscious mind is activated you can make a conscious decision to get up from the bed. At first, I was skeptical, but it worked like charm every single time. If you want to learn more about that, check Mel‘s website or read more in her book.
It‘s was hard for a couple of weeks
Once I learned how to wake up, I thought that I could just switch to waking up early and function properly, but I was wrong. The first three days were the worst; my eyes were dry and caused me a lot of pain; my energy levels were low and I would just drag my feet during the day and do nothing. However, I must note that I wasn‘t a particularly cheerful person in the mornings and that probably added to the problem.
One of the keys to my successful waking implementation was the fact that I was waking up every day, even during weekends and my days off. First, I thought that I could just use one day for sleeping longer, but than I had to go through adjusting for the next couple of mornings so I decided to wake up at 4:30 am every day.
The other important thing that made my getting up early easier was going to bed early. For the last 10 months, I have been going to bed at 9 pm every night. Getting to bed early is important because I need my 7-8 hours of sleep or I won‘t be feeling well and I won‘t be able to function during the day; not to mention to write.
The benefits of waking up early
Once I get into my routine of getting up early you I could see all its benefits.
- nobody is bothering me because they are all sleeping;
- I can find my peace and write;
- I feel very fresh in the morning and during the day;
- I don’t have trouble falling asleep because by 9 pm I am awake for 16 hours and eager to sleep;
- I never complain about not having time for doing things;
Make a mourning routine
Once I established a waking habit I tried to make my morning routine. For example, after I wake up, I have my breakfast, meditate for 40 minutes, make myself a cup of coffee and sit down to write. I don’t check my phone, my email, or anything similar.
There is no such thing as – I’ll check my facebook for 5 minutes and then I will write. It took me some time to realize that and I often used to lose whole mornings trapped in social media which resulted in a bad mood and regret. So, I decided to do the most important things first then everything else.
The best decision in my life
Now, I wouldn‘t trade my morning time for anything in the world. When I wake up, the first thing I do is to look through the window just to see all the lights off on the neighboring building‘s windows and that gives me a feeling of being in front of anyone in the world and I feel invincible.
Do you also get up early in the morning to write or you have different writing routines? Tell us in the comment‘s section below.
P.S.
If you want to find out more about some famous writer’s and their waking habits, you should check brainpicking.org. Here is the article where I first found out about writer’s wake up times and their working habits.