"Early to bed, and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise."-Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
Today, I just want to talk about waking early in the morning. I know that most of you wake up late in the morning, especially in the weekend. Am I right? I was educated by my parents to wake up around 6.00 am .. If not, my mom will start babbling about religious things. But that doesn't really wake me up... huhu... until I heard the sound of my father's motorcycle come back from the mosque around 6.30 am. So, I must woke up before my father wake me up.. I am afraid of my father because he is really strict... Huhu... ;p
Being far from my parents, I'd always been a night person. Usually I'm going to bed around 12.00 am or later and preferring to sleep as late as possible (3.00 am or so), and much later on the weekends. What I realized, though, after some introspection was that the late evening wasn't really the time when I was at my best. Sure, sometimes I could really get some excellent work done. But a lot of my nocturnal activities were not worthwhile.
After much thinking about being healthy, I decided I wanted to get up around 5.30 am. It seemed impossible for me for the first time but it was worth a try. The two key things that made the change possible for me were:
~ Set a fixed time to wake up, but vary the time I go to bed.
~ Get up at the same time every day.
The fixed time to get up helped a lot. It meant no negotiations. I get up at 5.30 am, no matter what. I don't have to think about what the day it is, or what the day will be like, or what the night before was like.
As soon as the alarm goes off, I get up. Immediately! It's important to have the discipline to just get up and not hit snooze or bargain with yourself. Sure, my mind tried to do that in the beginning, but after only few days of ignoring that voice that said "just a little more sleep", now there isn't even a pause when the alarm goes off. Often I wake up about 15 minutes before the alarm goes off.
And what time to me go to bed? "It depends. It's different every day". I go to bed when I'm really tired. Sometimes that's 9.00 pm; sometimes that's 11.00 pm. It has been as late as 12.00 am, and as early as 8.30 pm. Hehe... Generally, I go to bed between 9.30 and 10.30 each night. So that means I'm getting around 7-8 hours of sleep on average night. My morning schedule goes something like this:
~ After Subuh prayer, around 6.00 am - 7.00 am : Exercise - Jogging (almost 4km), hiking etc
~ 7.00 am - 7.10 am: make some breakfast
~ 7.00 am - 7.40 am: preparing myself to go to work
~ 7.40 am - walking to my office (if weather is good and depends on my legs condition.. hehe..)
~ Around 8.10 am - Start working... ;p
The schedule is not really this rigid. Sometimes I adjust the other things accordingly. The key, for me is that I do each of them every day. Has it been worthwhile for me to turn my sleeping schedule like this? For me, yes!! An extra hour every day, filled with worthwhile things has made big changes in my life. Maybe it would for you too? Who knows... ;p
If you are not yet an early riser, training yourself to become one of the wisest investments in time you will ever make. It is no coincidence that many successful people trained themselves to become an early riser's at some stage in their lives. When you manage to get up at five instead of seven o'clock in the morning, you will get more extra hours a year. It's up you, guys. I just want to share my thought for today. Bye and have a nice day!
~Signing off.
