Waking up at 5AM

Inspired from a Medium article.

Key takeaways

• Start reading Haruki Murakami's novels. It seems interesting.
• The repetition itself becomes the important thing; it's a form of mesmerism.
• Mesmerising things to do has contributed a lot to him—it's like tying one habit to the other as James Clear says in Atomic Habits.
• A drive of motivation will be there for waking up early when we practise it.
• Create and cultivate a strong purpose for waking up earlier. Create a routine—what to do after waking up. If it's a useless time-spending thing (simply sitting isn't considered one), like scrolling phone, don't consider waking up early for it.
  • Create a purpose that extends beyond a basic task.
• Run a 5 Whys analysis.
  • Start with a small problem and work up to the root of it to find a real need to wake up early.
• Consider what you gain and lose:
  • Gains
    • Early morning distraction-free hours.
    • Prefrontal cortex is most active right after waking up, making it optimal for creativity.
    • Writing and creative input is high at morning times. (Personally experienced this.)
    • Ultimately you gain a few hours with solitude on yourself.
  • Loses
    • Mostly the late night munches you earlier used to enjoy and devour will be gone.
    • You'll start the day slowly thinking that you have a lot of time in your sleeve.
    • In my case, the cold in the mornings cause me allergy, so sneezing and runny nose alert.
    • You feel like you're running out of time.
    • If you're a student or a worker, your work/college time ends typically by 5 (for me my college ends at 4 and I talk with other people and spend an hour in college). This leaves with less time for you to do things that you usually did.
• You should give yourself some off days to the schedule. Some days everything doesn't go well as I planned—I need to shift the time I need to go to sleep, but limiting it to once a day.

Questions to ask yourself

• What will I gain with the extra time in the morning?
• What will I lose with the lost time at night?

Then ask yourself: "Do the benefits outweigh the costs?"

Practical tips

• Start off by sleeping more than you intend to.
• Try waking up naturally when your body awakens itself.
• Don't try to introduce drastic changes to your life.
• Do something you really like (watching YouTube does count) to get your day started.
• Start and plan a morning routine tailored for you.
  • No blogs or articles are going to really plan what you want to do—so tailor one to yourselves.
• One day of waking up early feels like good.