32 ms·

What’s the rush? The power of a slow morning

• throwanem 8y ago
  I can recommend the practice; for the last few years, I've gone to bed around 10pm every night, and gotten up at five before heading to work around nine. (Adjust to taste depending on your sleep needs; the important point is to give yourself a few hours to yourself in the morning.) In practice, this means moving discretionary time from last thing in the day to first thing, and I think there's great value in that. After all, the things we do with our discretionary time - don't we do them because they matter to us? Certainly I do! And I've found that starting my day with them, when I can approach them with a fresh mind, both improves my ability to pursue those avocations, and gives me a better platform on which to begin a day of work than scrambling to do everything at the last minute has ever done.
  • travisjungroth 8y ago
    I've heard repeatedly if you have some side project you really care about, do it before work, not after.
    • gnclmorais 8y ago
      That definitely works for me. I’ve tried to work on side projects after my daily job but I often got home drained and with zero will to code anything. Since then I started moving this time into my mornings, before work. It definitely feels short and like you’re on a time constrain more than the evenings, but I’ve made progress on my projects like this, bit by bit.
    • mikeg8 8y ago
      Same here. I believe this is due to will power depletion (plenty of studies conclude that will power is finite resource) and after our normal 9-5 drains away our will power, people have a heard time being self-motivated - very true for me at least.
      • feenix566 8y ago
        Yeah, and if you use your will power before work, you run out of it earlier in the work day and you get less done at work.
        • jriot 8y ago
          Give more of my will power to myself or to someone else? Seems to be an easy answer.
          • Insanity 8y ago
            It's also instrinsic motivation when you work on side projects. That is definitely harder to push after a full day at work. At work, the motivating factors are different, and you have someone pushing you to get stuff done.
        • throwanem 8y ago
          Sure, if the things you're doing before work require willpower to pursue. They don't have to be. And jriot's point in my sibling comment is in any case well made.
        • Sgt_Apone 8y ago
          I do this and just front load my day to have the more demanding stuff in the morning with the less demanding in the afternoon. It works well for me and if anything I feel my productivity has increased.
    • flukus 8y ago
      The most productive I've ever been on side projects was when I had an hour long commute via public transport. It was a solid hour with few options for other activities and very little distractions. The ride home was a second hour but I was usually burnt out by then.
  • vollmond 8y ago
    For me at least (speaking hypothetically, since I haven't tried this), that seems like it would fly in the face of "get your work done so you can play without it hanging over your head." And it means that (if I have a fairly hard work start time) I am watching the clock the whole time I'm using discretionary time, whereas doing it after work means I can just go until I'm tired, without really worrying about the clock.
    • throwanem 8y ago
      The work will be there either way. So I can choose to work first and come home worn out from that and then try to do things I care about, or instead to do things I care about first, that don't wear me out, and carry a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment with me to work. And, I mean, I'm not trying to finish a story before work - not from scratch, certainly. My current story is around 20k words right now, and it's somewhere between a quarter and a third done. I wouldn't get it done in one day if I had every minute to myself! And it'd be no good if I did. But if I can add a few hundred words, or a few dozen that cover a point that's been giving me trouble, or just a few pages of notes in my diary on where the plot's going to go at a given point - and I can do that in a morning - then that's enough. I think that distinction between finishing and doing might make a difference here - if I thought about it in terms of the former, it'd only frustrate me because I'd run out of time. Thinking about it in the latter terms makes it a question of deciding and finding out how much progress I'll make today. I don't know if that's how it works out for everyone, and it's anyone's guess whether it'll still work the same for me once I get an elliptical trainer into my apartment and start going ham on that every day. But this is how it's worked for me, thus far.
      • tachyonbeam 8y ago
        I'd like to put my hobbies and fun things first, but, I'm a little afraid that my performance at work would suffer, because I'd have less energy when showing up to work, especially at the end of the day. I already often find it hard to remain productive after 3-4PM. I'm worried that if I got up earlier and worked on hobbies before going to work, I'd have even less productive energy to dedicate to my job, and my performance would slide a bit.
  • fhbdukfrh 8y ago
    do you have a SO or kids? I ask because my experience is this doesn't work as well when you move past single responsibility. It tends (a) reduce discretionary time and (b) push it earlier or later
    • ams6110 8y ago
      Exactly. Early morning routine becomes getting kids out of bed, dressed, fed, and off to school. If you're getting up before THAT to do your own things, it would need to be really early.
      • mi100hael 8y ago
        One of the people in TFA gets up at 2-3am on Tu/W/Th... O_O
      • PascLeRasc 8y ago
        Casey Neistat has two kids and gets up at 4am to exercise before taking care of them. This video goes over his time management technique: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-Cvl3_CH2A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-Cvl3_CH2A
        • jgon 8y ago
          By his own reckoning he sleeps for under 5 hours every day. Maybe he's one of the vanishing few who can get by on that amount of sleep (you are not though, so don't try to emulate him), or maybe he's not listing naps he takes throughout the day, or maybe he's just setting himself up for a lifetime of health consequences from prolonged sleep deprivation. Whichever it is, it's not exactly the sort of routine one should take too much inspiration from for one's own life.
    • throwanem 8y ago
      I first established this habit back when I was married, so I can attest that it’s compatible with at least some romantic relationships. Can’t speak to the problem of balancing discretionary time and parental responsibilities, other than to say “Good luck!”
• georgeecollins 8y ago
  Habit is a really powerful thing when applied over the course of our lives and the truth is that people tend to follow habits most at the start of their days. If there is something you want to do every day (read, work, exercise, relax) do it in your morning and it will become a habit.
  • madeuptempacct 8y ago
    I have never bought this. I work out (and have for the past 15 years) from 9 - 11pm and go to sleep almost immediately after. Maybe you are talking about initial habit formation. For me, mornings are a horrible time to do anything. I prepare my clothing, pack my lunch, plan my day, etc at night, just to make waking up "easier", knowing that everything is laid out for me. And yes, I do wake up at a set time.
• kareemm 8y ago
  Is it just me or is this article also paywalled for you when you click web => WSJ article? If so, is there another way to read it other than paying for a subscription? I don't read the WSJ often enough to justify subscribing.
  • bduerst 8y ago
    WSJ removed Google users' access to articles, so the web link doesn't work for them anymore. Now the only way to view a WSJ article for free is if you're referred through Facebook, I believe.
    • donarb 8y ago
      Most of the time what I do is go to outline.com. Paste the link into the box and read the article just fine.
      • the_common_man 8y ago
        What is outline.com?
        • dacur 8y ago
          it's a free service that allows you to bypass some paywalls like nytimes, wapo, and wsj. it strips out everything but the text.
    • deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    • andremendes 8y ago
      I've just tried accessing through fb-referred link and got the same paywalled view.
      • bduerst 8y ago
        Damn, looks like they've gone full paywall.
• ilamont 8y ago
  I can't read TFA, but wanted to note that there's an interesting statistic in the book Why We Sleep: Something like 30% of the population are hard-wired to be "night owls" and 20% early risers. The author hypothesized that this may be an evolutionary survival mechanism that allowed bands of humans to always have people who were awake or more likely to wake quickly if threatened after dark or in the early morning. For the natural night owls (I am one) the power of a slow morning is just the way we roll. I am so much more productive at 9pm than 9am, and have reworked my daily schedule accordingly.
  • cmg 8y ago
    Here's a non-paywall version of it: https://outline.com/7WuvGD https://outline.com/7WuvGD
  • VectorLock 8y ago
    I always wondered if my night owl tendencies were nature or nurture (staying up late for inexpensive long distance and calling night-only BBSes) and I've gravitated to a career that embraces that mode (SRE, Operations, on-call positions) . It seems that society seems to value the 'get up early' more than the 'stay up late' ability.
    • ilamont 8y ago
      That's right. That may a holdover from our agrarian roots, when people had to get up early to milk the cows or work in the fields before it got too hot. It's become institutionalized in modern society ("9 to 5", schools scheduled in the morning and early afternoon, etc.)
  • hexo 8y ago
    I'm unemployable just because of this. I cannot "work" in the morning or when my employer thinks I have to.
    • rconti 8y ago
      Do you get enough sleep to even judge whether you're able to wake up in the AM?
• mtalantikite 8y ago
  I've been doing this for years now and it's hard to imagine the old days when I used to wake up, shower, and run into work. At first it started with just waking up, making coffee with my aeropress, and sitting down to read a novel for up to an hour. The past 2.5+ years have been: wake up, stretch and pranayama for 20 minutes, meditate for 30 minutes, make tea/coffee, write for 30-40 minutes, shower and then off to work. (I've moved the reading to the evenings before bed.) All in it's about 2 hours from waking up until out the door to walk to work. My work days now start even more focused -- previously I'd just be sitting at my desk being only semi productive, waiting for the coffee to kick in. It's worth giving it a try for a couple months to see how it works for you.
  • hongshizi 8y ago
    Out of curiosity, what do you differently during your 30 minute meditation than during the pranayama?
    • mtalantikite 8y ago
      For pranayama I practice things like nadi sodhana, bhastrika, and visama vrtti, with kumbhakas depending on what I'm doing. My meditation is probably closest to what people call vipassana these days -- it's watching the breath or another meditation object without any active control of it (which isn't completely correct, as attention does affect the breath). Pranayama on the other hand is an active manipulation of the breath.
      • hongshizi 8y ago
        I see. So do you practice pranayama prior to the vipassana in order to increase the effectiveness of the vipassana? Or do they do function separately for you?
        • mtalantikite 8y ago
          That's a good question. I view them as separate but interrelated, and often times I'll practice pranayama without doing a corresponding meditation (e.g. after asana). Pranayama in many ways is exercise which readies you for meditation. The Anapanasati Sutta makes reference to a form of it as a preparatory practice. It has helped me investigate and understand bodily sensations that arise in meditation that previously would have been distracting to me. Or to not be overwhelmed with fear or thoughts in meditation when occasionally you realize "hey, I actually haven't been breathing for a while". Happy to talk about it more off thread if you'd like (email in profile).
• __abc 8y ago
  Over the past two years of my personal and professional life I've materially stressed slowing down to go fast. That means more down time to contemplate, plan, think, etc. I still get up insanely early (always been one of those people) but I use that time for me between cooking, exercise, reading, thinking, meditating, etc. Not sprinting to work (whether it be from home or in the office) has led to less hours "working" but more getting done with higher quality. Now, I can't all pin it on going slower. It is probably cumulative between that time spent on me, focused on my kids (I take them to school almost every day now), and higher energy/focus time on work. I've always said you can't schedule creativity (and no matter what your role within Product Development direct/indirect) we are all creative folks solving hard problems. I just don't fill that downtime with staring at my PC and instead invest it on me. When in office I've even started taking a mid-afternoon nap. That also has had a big effect. I'm kinda rambling at this point, but taking material steps back daily have led to significant improvements in my throughput across the board. $0.02
• jungler 8y ago
  The most effective thing for my mornings has been motion. I don't "get more work done" in terms of sit and think time, rather, by making the first thing I do be jog a little, maybe pick up a coffee, and relax, then I can face everything else. The alternative is that I spend the first hour of the day in the way that I spend the last hour of the day, in front of a screen. Which doesn't seem to work well for me.
  • beefalo 8y ago
    I really hope I can continue to live close enough to bike or walk to work. It makes a huge difference in alertness when starting the day with some activity versus driving to the office.
• emiranda 8y ago
  I've been waking up at 5am for the past 5 months so I can head to the gym (my first telecom meeting starts at 7am). Because no one is ever going to bother me between 5am and 7am, I've been able to consistently got to the gym at least 3x per week (trying to bump it up to 5x per week for the new year). I started doing this because it was very difficult for me to consistently go to the gym after work. Things come up, I get tired, friends want to hang out, sometimes I just want to relax after work. But getting up and getting my workout done in the morning has many benefits: Being physical in the morning gives me an energy boost and is a great wake up call, I get my workout out of the way and I don't have to think about it the rest of the day, the gym in generally empty compared to the afternoon, helps me control my sleep cadence, and I feel great knowing that I already accomplished something significant so early in the morning (My whole workout usually spans between 1.5 and 2 hours, I do a lot of stretching and like to take my time). I also try my best not to use my phone aside from music and my workout/fitness apps. Since I've had such great results from this, I'm thinking of trying to switch it up by working on my side project in the morning and attempting to do the gym in the evening.
  • jimmaswell 8y ago
    I'm really glad my workplace has a gym in it. I use it during lunch hour daily and it works out great.
    • irrational 8y ago
      Same here. Being able to go for a swim, lift weights, using the climbing wall, etc. when stuck on a problem is great.
      • dev1n 8y ago
        Where do you work? Would love to be somewhere with a pool to take laps in.
        • gadders 8y ago
          There is a gym below my building with a pool in Canary Wharf in London if you are UK based.
• mcqueenjordan 8y ago
  If it works for Jeff Bezos, it's probably good enough for me. > He wakes up every morning naturally, without the aid of an alarm clock. > "I like to putter in the morning," Bezos told a gathering of Economic Club of Washington, DC. "So I like to read the newspaper. I like to have coffee."
  • rch 8y ago
    I do this, but seasonality can be an issue. The last few winters I've added some artificial lighting that ramps up before sunrise, with seemingly positive results.
    • PascLeRasc 8y ago
      Yep. My bed faces an east window so during winter I can tell before opening my eyes in the morning what it's like outside. On days like today when it's 55F, I wake up naturally before my alarm with no desire to keep sleeping, my breathing feels amazing, I have no muscle soreness, and I just get right out of bed. When it's cold and the sun isn't out, I feel like I'm trying to get over a bad cold. Artificial lamps help quite a bit though.
    • PacifyFish 8y ago
      Curious how you implemented this. I bought a Phillips “sunrise alarm clock” about a year ago, but the light was weak and I didn’t feel a difference at all. Did you hack together something yourself?
      • rch 8y ago
        Nope, I'm lazy: Lifx. They were a little annoying to set up, but have worked well since.
      • samuell 8y ago
        Yep. The Philips one is a joke.
      • ndiscussion 8y ago
• ppeetteerr 8y ago
  Slow mornings are the best (if you can afford them)! Going for a walk, going to the gym, making a real breakfast, walking to work, etc. The last hour of a day is hardly the finest. If you move it to the morning, you'll get to enjoy your day in three parts, not two: morning/body/mind/soul, afternoon/work, evening/play.
• asynchrony 8y ago
  I was a lifelong night owl. Six months ago I decided to start going to the gym and meditating every morning in an effort to completely reprogram my habits. Now I look forward to the mornings and find myself going to bed as soon as I feel like I can sleep. I'm convinced that our behaviors are mostly determined by our habits, and we can freely change our habits with sufficient commitment.
  • zackb 8y ago
    Good one, same here. About 2 years ago I started doing just this. One hour of seated meditation followed by exercise while still leaving 20-30 minutes of "nothing" time before starting work. It has changed my life for the better in so many ways its hard to overstate.
  • lostdog 8y ago
    I did the same thing and it didn't work for me. Curious how some people are different.
• dpc_pw 8y ago
  ITT: Nice to have no kids. :D
  • alfredmuffin 8y ago
    Highly recommend it!
  • weavie 8y ago
    It gets easier as they grow older.
  • war1025 8y ago
    I have three kids, though none are school aged yet. My mornings are when I have the highest quality interactions with them. We are all the most well-rested we're going to be for the day, which means everyone is likely to be pretty agreeable. Plus we have our routine figured out, and going through the motions gets us all off to a good start to our day. (But also, the chances of me getting "An hour of meditation and reading the paper" are roughly zero :) )
• mi100hael 8y ago
  For anyone interested in changing their sleep habits and becoming a regular early riser, I found this guy's blog to be quite helpful: https://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/05/how-to-become-an-early-riser/ https://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/05/how-to-become-an-e...
  • madeuptempacct 8y ago
    Pavlina is a good author, but I don't believe most of what he says - the whole spiel about how he finished college in a year while starting a video game company or whatever and how he slept 4 hrs a day while doing this. This makes me questions anything else he says. There is another, far-less famous, far-more sane blogger like him, but I can't find his page and don't remember his name. Maybe someone here can help me out.
  • _tulpa 8y ago
    This is more or less devoid of any useful information... When my alarm goes off every morning, I turn it off, stretch for a couple seconds, and sit up Is what everyone already knows. The article implies that you somehow just do this and conveniently ignores how useless that advice is for breaking or replacing habits. Especially ones where you’re not going to be alert enough to even remember that you’re supposed to be be doing something. If you simply go to bed when you’re sleepy and then get up at a fixed time, you’ll cure your insomnia This is not how insomnia works at all. ”If you simply be happy you’ll cure your depression!”
    • dceddia 8y ago
      This other one was much more useful. I tried this a few years ago and it seemed to work, but it was also really easy to fall back into old habits. Still though, might be worth a try. > This is going to sound really stupid, but it works. Practice getting up as soon as your alarm goes off. That’s right — practice. But don’t do it in the morning. Do it during the day when you’re wide awake. https://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/04/how-to-get-up-right-away-when-your-alarm-goes-off/ https://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/04/how-to-get-up-righ... (actual strategy starts about half way down)
    • 8y ago
• theNJR 8y ago
  This routine makes me happier and more motivated3 No tech after 930pm (read books, Kindle is OK) No tech until I’m at the gym around 630 the next morning (checking phone first thing in the morning is a pit of disaster) Bath, meditate, journal. Work at 930am.
• pmatos 8y ago
  Am I the only one who can't read this because it's behind a paywall?
  • Sargos 8y ago
    If you go to https://www.drudgereport.com/ https://www.drudgereport.com/ then right click one of the hyperlinks and select Inspect you can change the URL in the HTML to the URL for this article. When you click the link you will be able to read the full article as WSJ whitelists drudge report.
  • dacur 8y ago
    you can paste the link after outline.com, which will allow you to read the text of the article, so outline.com/your-link-here (or just visit outline.com and paste the link into the box on the home page).
• war1025 8y ago
  I seriously considered switching jobs in December, as in had an offer and accepted it before backing out and taking the counter-offer from my current employer. Honestly the deciding factor was that I couldn't stomach the idea of getting up two hours earlier every day. My mornings are long, drawn out affairs where I have ~3 hours to hang out with my kids, listen to the radio, do some chores, and generally prepare myself for the day. Having had that for the past several years, the idea of giving it up was just too much for me.
• Tiktaalik 8y ago
  Yeah this is a core reason why a long driving commute is an absolute deal breaker for me and probably why I'll never end up working for a big corp in SF. In Vancouver I can wake up at 7am, go to the gym in my building or the nearby community centre, read, do some shores, have a lazy breakfast and still walk or take a short bike ride into work at 10am. I can't imagine throwing all that free time away just to sit in traffic.
  • neivin 8y ago
    I live in SF and your Vancouver day is the same as my day here. I wake up at 7am, do my daily stretching routine, bike/ride the bus to work at around 7:30. I'm at work around 8:00 - 8:15. I have breakfast and work for 3ish hours. I go to the gym two blocks from my office building at lunch, shower, and then go on with the rest of my day.
    • extragood 8y ago
      Me too. The solution is to live close to work/easy transportation..
• Taylor_OD 8y ago
  Goodness. I don't think I've ever met anyone else who values the slow morning as much as I do. If I could I'd go into work around 10:30AM every morning. I need 7.5 hours of sleep at least. Really 8.5 to be at my best. That means I'm going to bed at 11PM and waking up at 7:30AM ideally. If I'm going to be at work by 9AM then I have to rush around to do everything. I've cut my morning activities down to do so but I'd like an extra hour or so every morning. An hour and a half would be ideal so I could get the gym out of the way. But It doesnt look like that will happen anytime soon.
  • SllX 8y ago
    Out of curiosity, why not move your bedtime back a couple of hours? My own bedtime is 2230-0630 and I have been contemplating moving it back earlier to get more out of my morning as I tend to start work between 0730 and 0800.
    • Taylor_OD 8y ago
      I'm really a night owl. One of those people that just doesnt functional as well in the morning. Or at least right out of bed. 6-9 are when I get my me time before starting to wind down. If I moved my bedtime to 9PM I wouldnt have that time. In theory I would gain it in the morning which would be fine but I have other activities that require me to be up till 1AM most Friday/Saturdays.
• timcederman 8y ago
  Weird how casually they drop in that the one woman spends her time in the morning selling essential oils, most likely via a MLM scheme (even mentions posting on social media to support it).
• imh 8y ago
  I've done this for years and would totally recommend it. I didn't know it was a growing "movement!" I use it to foster an attitude of work-life balance. When you wake up in the morning in order to go to work, work is the focus. When you wake up and hours later go to work, it's just that thing that sucks up a lot of the middle of your day. I stay way saner and less burnt out due to this habit.
• becga 8y ago
  In my own experience, I believe people have been trained from a very young age to "get up and GO" and for many years working in Software I would wake up and immediately start thinking about work problems etc. My conclusion is that it is a waste of mental energy which is very evident on days you are feeling under the weather etc. These days it is all about a gradual wake up, having a nutritious breakfast and spending time with my dog (walking) before I leave for work commute.
• jacknews 8y ago
  I also wake at anywhere from 4 to 7, but in reality IMHO, that's still the middle of the night, not the morning. Morning is when it's light.
• flipetty 8y ago
  in my case, waking up with the sun is what works best. We are not naturally adapted to waking up with a loud sound. We have been thousands of years waking up by nature and the sun. So since I started doing this, my life has changed
• iheartpotatoes 8y ago
  Paywalled WSJ article. Curious, does this article consider people who have to punch a clock, or is it just for the 3%-ers who can lounge in the morning?
• beholdasun 8y ago
  I find that how much sleep I need depends on how present and moral I feel in my life in general at that time. At one extreme, I once attended a week and a half meditation retreat in which you're up at 4, meditating for about 11 hours every day and the whole thing is silent. I felt such heightened moral and mental clarity by the fifth and sixth days that I began sleeping less, sometimes lying awake until 2 or 3am (and up at 4), but felt full of energy each day. At the other extreme, carrying on in a big city, I indulge in vices, deviate from my notion of perfect morality, exaggerate in conversations, eat meat, engage in reactive behavior with others, fail to keep up a meditation routine etc., and I end up sleeping 7-8 hours like clockwork. I have a twofold theory 1. Internal monologue creates excess pathways in the brain that need to be pruned, creating the need to sleep. Decreasing the amount and degree of our internal monologue (sometimes called 'being present') decreases the amount of these pathways and thus the sleep we need. 2. Failure to act rightly/morally/virtuously creates the need to sleep. The more our daily actions are in line with our sense of right action, right morality, the less sleep we will need. The deeper theory here is that immoral acts cause neurological agitation that creates toxins in the brain that sleep flushes away. My theory is supported by my understanding of sleep as having the function of 'flushing toxins' from the brain and 'pruning' neurological pathways that the brain determines not useful, such as a thought you had that day in your internal monologue. Immoral acts tend to nag at us, even if only a little act and a little bit, creating anxious internal monologue, compounding the need for sleep.
• el_cid 8y ago
  I was so sure I was a Night OWL - and I started waking up to learn Swift development to change my career. And I got used to it. The trick is to go to sleep early at a set time and do keep at it for a few weeks.