As a cynic, I joined the 5 am club. After two weeks I am ready to take full-time membership.
I joined a club. It’s free and there are no other members when I visit; I have the clubhouse all to myself; its bliss. The only caveat? You’ll need to get there early to enjoy it.
Some things you should know about me. I am not an early riser; as winter in the Southern Hemisphere is slowly creeping in, as quarantines and lockdowns make the world a very different place to play in, it's increasingly harder to get out of bed and get going.
I am also great at starting things and not finishing them. The list is endless, mediation, yoga, new business ideas have all been started, enjoyed briefly and then just as quickly cast aside. My mother tells me this is a standard Sagittarius trait and in truth, it’s something I cling to when I want to give up on a new project; “it’s okay” I tell myself, “your half-horse-half-man, therefore you were designed to start this and peter out”. It can be comforting to blame my lack of commitment to some tasks on the night sky; a human Centaur with a get-out-of-mental-jail-free card.
I also know that I am capable of change but sometimes I just can’t be bothered to see it through; I will find the next shiny thing to chase and do; that’s not Astrology’s fault, that’s just being lazy.
This new reality we are experiencing, temporary as it may be one hopes, has upset our normal work-life routines and has created a feeling of unsettled anxiety somewhere within me — always present in some form. The longer it goes on the harder it is to find control, enjoyment and routine in the spaces I normally operate in.
“Control the things you can, let go of those you can’t and enjoy the journey.”
So when I recently read an article on Medium about waking up at 5 am every morning; how it increases your workday, allows you to accomplish more, builds your confidence and money-making abilities and ultimately makes for a better daily routine, I chose a new project to start and I was sure, eventually, give up.
If there is one thing I have right now its time. We all have more of it. No having to be at the office at 8 am, no school runs, picking up kids from sports practise, no long car journeys with traffic to be stuck in. As I said earlier, I am not an easy early riser unless I am chasing a meeting, catching a flight or being kicked out of bed by one of the children — I need a reason to get up and in lockdown, those reasons, like zoom meets and emails, are pushed back a few hours; the start of the day has become more hazy and slow. The thought of deliberately waking up at 5 am every morning, in the dark, searching for my slippers and the coffee machine is not something that lures me into a sense of “get up and go” excitement.
The original article referenced Mark Wahlberg’s daily routine, something like getting up at 3 am to go to the gym, then start his workday, then go to the gym, locked in family time, go to the gym and then bed by 7 pm. He swears by this and attributes much of his success to following this routine daily and religiously.
For better or for worse, and I worry it’s the latter, I am no Marky Mark. My need to hit the weights, drink protein shakes at 4 am and have a cool-down routine has never been high on my agenda; I say this cynically as I am also jealous of it. I know that it would improve my health, my longevity and my outlook, but right now my priorities rightly or wrongly are elsewhere.
What I need is not muscle gain. What I need is more time. Yes, I have it in lockdown, but it’s not constructive time. It is not routine. If anything, it's too much of the “don’t worry there is plenty of time” time, rather than what am I doing with that time? So, when I absent-mindedly read the Medium article, I thought to myself, this is something I could do right now; implement immediately and regain some control. And if I didn’t like it, I could just hit the snooze button, problem solved.
As I mentioned, the article spoke of great things to come; increased confidence increased money-making abilities and simply getting more done. I am not sure the confidence and the money-making were what I was looking for, but I can tell you after two weeks of a new routine, things are happening.
So, what has changed?
The first few days, day one to three especially were perhaps the hardest. The entire house is asleep, everyone is buried under warm blankets and even the dog is not stirring. Why would anybody do this without a red-eye to catch? I struggle with how to utilize the time effectively; I am slightly groggy, so the first 45 minutes almost feel like a waste. I scan emails, watch YouTube videos and fire off WhatsApp messages to colleagues who quite rightfully are still asleep; I question that. Am I doing that just to prove that I am up early? Possibly. The article spoke about a sense of superiority; not an ugly one but claimed via the very fact that you are “up and at ‘em” before anyone else. I didn’t think that would affect me but perhaps in the first few days it did filter up through my subconscious; I know that I mentioned in meetings several times, now much to my chagrin, that “I was up at 5am this morning…”; like an athlete casually throwing into conversation their PB without being asked.
Smugness or perhaps a sense of achievement in committing and doing, albeit for only three days in a row? What I did find, for all that underlying smugness, was that I was actually getting stuff done. I was even allowing myself to ease into the afternoons; completing the workday perhaps at 4 pm if I had no meetings. I knew that I could because anything pressing, a report, a long email or some research I was planning on doing could now be done tomorrow — I had literally bought myself nearly 4 hours of the extra workday; an extra 80 hours a month.
If I analyzed the routine I was setting up and compared it to last few months of “Pandemic work life”, I would get up at around 8, slowly emerge, get coffee and flick through Instagram and read through work emails (but not reply) and then truly get going by 10.
Now by 8 am I had generally responded to whatever had come in the night before, managed to complete reports and research and then go for a walk with the family.
And as a result, I am able to enjoy the walks and the “downtime” time because there is nothing pressing that I needed to get back to; the smugness is real.
On the fourth day, the first Thursday, I didn’t get up. I ignored my alarms and gave myself an extra two hours in bed. I have for as long as I can remember I have suffered from anxiety-driven insomnia (self-diagnosed). If there is something on my mind that is worrying me it will come to the fore at around 2 am, repeatedly stab my mind until I am awake; I will obsess on the worst-case scenarios (normally work-related) until around 4 or 5 am and then fall back to sleep. Wednesday night, Thursday morning was a case in point. I couldn’t or rather wouldn’t wake up after getting just an hour sleep post-worst-case-business-ending-scenario thought train. I hit the snooze button twice and only woke up at about 7:30 am.
I had only been at it for three days or so and my day was immediately out of whack. I felt the lost time intensely. It was time that I could not get back. Time I had lost and now had left me behind; I felt like a runner who got to the race late and now was sprinting to try and catch up.
It was quite an eye-opener as to how quickly I was adjusting to early rising life — losing it, even after three days, was hard and above all irritating; it was a feeling that stayed with me all day. What was happening? I had given this time away for the last how many years? And now after three days, I was angry at its loss?
Thursday night saw a similar event. This time however I pushed myself to get back to sleep so I could still wake up to the 5 am alarm; I wasn’t going to let it happen again and I told my worried mind that I could solve the issue in my head with the extra time I had in the morning.
I gave myself the weekend off from the routine. I was missing the lie-ins, the need not to jump out of bed, the warm cuddles with my wife; I decided to allow myself that at least two days of the week. Saturday was easy, my body clock seemingly not having adjusted completely to waking up without an alarm, Sunday for whatever reason saw me wake up at five on the dot, but I turned over and slept for a few more hours.
I did consider the cost of the “weekend break”; would I be able to slip into Monday on the same schedule or would my half-man-half-horse excuse come into play and say “well that was good, at least you gave it the old college try”. But Monday came, the 5 am alarm went off and I was up. If I am honest, I think the previous Thursday’s loss of productivity from having overslept, was a real wakeup call (pun intended). I wanted that time in the morning. I was craving it already.
The second week was easier already. I found that I was developing a routine. Get straight up, head to the kitchen, glass of water, French press the coffee, while that was drawing I would unload the dishwasher so it was one less thing my wife had to do (sense of accomplishment achieved by 5:15 am) and then head upstairs to my temporary “Pandemic” office.
It put me in mind of a great speech now known as “Make Your Bed” by Admiral William H. McRaven. He gave the speech as the commencement address to the graduates of The University of Texas at Austin on May 17, 2014. It had a profound effect on me when I watched it a few years ago and as an adult in his 40’s made me start making my bed when I got out of it.
“Every morning in basic SEAL training, my instructors, who at the time were all Vietnam veterans, would show up in my barracks room and the first thing they would inspect was your bed. If you did it right, the corners would be square, the covers pulled tight, the pillow centered just under the headboard and the extra blanket folded neatly at the foot of the rack — that’s Navy talk for bed.
It was a simple task — mundane at best. But every morning we were required to make our bed to perfection. It seemed a little ridiculous at the time, particularly in light of the fact that were aspiring to be real warriors, tough battle-hardened SEALs, but the wisdom of this simple act has been proven to me many times over.
If you make your bed every morning you will have accomplished the first task of the day.” Admiral William H. McRaven (link to video and speech here)
My interpretation of McRaven’s premise is simple. If you start with making your bed, or in this case getting up early to achieve more, you have already accomplished something. You have already won the day. That sense of accomplishment leads to a sense of pride (smugness?) that leads to a sense of wellbeing that leads to a more positive mindset and feeling of “what can I accomplish next?”. It's linear and visceral. That feeling of failure that I felt on the first Thursday, not waking up and not “making my bed” was an indication to me that this wasn’t a passing phase, a trial, but something that I needed.
I am only into week two; perhaps it’s premature to make a complete analysis of what is happening, but I do feel its working.
I like my club. I get there at 5.01 am. No other members are around. I get to enjoy my coffee, the quiet of the house, the stillness of the morning undisturbed. Instead of the morning sunlight waking me up, I have seen, felt and enjoyed ten sunrises while I sit at my laptop.
Each day I am ahead of the game. Perhaps in the future that converts to more wealth as the original article proposed. I can easily see why my clearer thinking in the morning would translate into better business decisions and more time for ancillary revenue creation; more time to think clearly before the demands of the business overrun my capacity for free and creative thought.
The smugness endures, perhaps its related to the confidence boost. I feel because I have “made my bed” as it were, anything I do not have time for today I know I have “created” time for tomorrow; I, therefore, stress less; I have made time.
I am sleeping better albeit earlier. You will find that by 8 or 9 pm you are ready to hit the pillow. Since the first Thursday insomnia session, I have not had a repeated episode; I don’t say it has disappeared for good but it’s easier to tell myself I can deal with any situation tomorrow as I will be ahead of the problem or challenge. 4 hours ahead.
The time now: 06:06 am
