Today is the third day of a couple of experiments I am conducting. The first is this blog. So far so good.
The second is a tougher one – I am trying to get out of bed early every morning. Since Tuesday I have set the alarm for 5am and have made myself get out of bed almost straightaway. Why on earth would I do this, you ask? Well, there are a number of reasons. Until now, my usual wake-up time has been 6am on weekdays and sometime between 7 and 9am on weekends. Note that although this is a wake-up time, I don’t necessarily get out of bed for a while after the alarm goes off. I usually end up lying in bed and dozing and listening to the radio and finally getting out of a bed a whole hour later. As a result this usually means I have to rush around to get ready for work. Sometimes, depending on how long I loll about in bed, I don’t have time for breakfast. Because I really dislike rushing, by the time we get in the car to go to work, I am not as relaxed as I could be.
Then, on Monday, while doing my blog research for work, I read this page. The points the author made struck a cord, and I decided to try it. It has been a little difficult and quite a test of my willpower. This morning I was almost tempted to just keep lying in bed – it doesn’t help when M (husband) and Baubles the cat are both snugly asleep and it is dark outside and cold – but after 1 minute of indecision, I got over it and got out of bed. What helped was remembering how much less rushed I have been feeling in the mornings, and how much I have been enjoying the couple of hours I now have before I have to get ready for work. I have been spending the time reading online, listening to the radio, and having breakfast at a leisurely pace. I’m now considering if there’s something else I could be doing during this time. Walking, perhaps? Meditating?
This morning has been quite productive already – I finally wrote up my notes from a planning meeting from last week. (I am on the programme committee for the 2006 ALIA conference.) It was worth getting out of bed at 5am just for this, because it has been annoying having a task I must do hanging over my head all week!
3 Comments
5a.m. is a bit brutal! But i am with you on early rising. Rarely will anyone find me sleeping in – i am big on rising early, especially because i loathe feeling rushed or that i haven’t given myself enough time.
It is a bit brutal, but once I get over the self pity 😉 I’ve been finding that I really enjoy the time. I picked 5am not because it was the time the author mentioned in his article, but because 6am was already my usual time and I thought the extra hour would be nice to have.
What the author said seems sensible, though. The longer you lie in bed, the harder it is to extricate yourself from the sheets.