New year, new resolutions. No time seems to be better to build new habits. A habit I always wanted to start in my life was getting up early or earlier and creating a morning routine. And it really did improve my life. Here’s why.
Most of us coders seem to be night owls. But I figured that many famous and successful people get up quite early in the morning. You can even read of times like 4:30! Crazy.
Since I have to be in the office somewhere between 9 o’clock and 9:30, I usually got up at around 8. Stressful bathroom stay, getting dressed, making some – if any – breakfast and getting out of the house. Sounds familiar?
Needless to say that with a start in the day like that, you arrive in the office very stressed.
Quite often I came across the idea of the early bird. Like Benjamin Franklin said:
“Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”
But is this really true?
As a software developer who can’t stop coding in his spare time, I always struggled with my side projects. You know the drill. Work, housework, friends, family, exercise, grocery shopping, all that stuff has to be done and then you also want to find the time for your side projects. Not to mention other hobbies like playing video games for instance.
I tried different ways. Adding one or two hours after work when there was an open window, doing many hours on the weekends, but in the long run, this was not fulfilling and did not really work out. The breaks between these hours have been too long. Then I came across the idea of spending only 30 minutes for your side projects – but every single day, or at least on workdays.
That was something I wanted to give a try. And I tried to spend these 30 minutes in the evenings after work, with no success. I was either too tired, or I came home too late, or there was something else going on or I just wanted to spend some time with my fiancée.
After that, I found this book: The Miracle Morning. And it hit me. I always wanted to try getting up early and implement some kind of morning routine into my life. The content of the book promises to transform your life with the help of the magical time before 8 am. So I tried that.
Believe me, getting up early when you’re not used to it is very hard. But I figured it’s crucial to know the right reason why you want to get up. When you know that, it’s a lot easier. And when your side projects are important to you and if working on them makes you happy, you will get up early.
You get quiet time for yourself. It’s amazing when (almost) everyone else is sleeping and you can focus on yourself and whatever you want to do or create (like this article here for instance).
Even better, now it’s not only 30 minutes. It’s more than an hour I really enjoy to get up early. Of course, the downside is, that you have to go to bed earlier, too. But somehow, it works. And honestly, is it really a downside to got to bed early? Usually, I’m not productive anyways and burn my time by watching TV which doesn’t benefit me in any way. It is a miracle.
So maybe, if you still need a New Year’s resolution, try to get up earlier. Maybe just 15 minutes for starters. And you could also try to implement some kind of morning routine into your life. Grab a cup of coffee or tea and write a line of code, 100 words for a blog post or play a video game for God’s sake if that’s what your missing in your daily life. The morning is perfect to do the things you’re otherwise missing out in your life.
Happy New Year!
The post The Miracle of a Morning Routine appeared first on Patrick's blog.
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Top comments (41)
I started doing this a few months ago. I get so much more now - particularly my personal projects, and I'm ready to go by the time I get to the work. Probably because my morning coffee has had enough time to do its magic ;)
That's great! :)
When I see this kind of posts, I feel weird. Lots of people seem to be liking this way of life.
To me, it just sounds like something I'll never be able to so, also because I think it's something I'll never want to do. Am I the only one ?😅
Each person has his own schedule, I think that more important that "following the right schedule" is to respect your body needs.
I'm at the other side of the spectrum, I used to get sleep past 11:00 each day when I was young and free of responsibilities xD
For me there's something magical on staying after midnight.
Maybe you're missing the right "why"? ;)
Im a firm believer- 5:15 the alarm is buzzing, very chill morning routine!
I've always been a morning person and since leaving dev in my career behind and moving to enterprise architecture I've spent my mornings working on all of my side projects. My routine sounds pretty brutal but I have a hectic life during the day and a family I would like to spend time with when they are awake and I'm home from work.
Here's a quick run down of my typical day:
3:30 - 4am wake up
4:15 - begin some coding while eating breakfast and drinking coffee. Catch up on dev.to and news between.
5:40 - Prepare notes for gym
6:00 - Gym
7:00 - Home for 2nd breakfast
7:30- Commute to work
8:05 - Working day begins
16:30 - Time to come home
17:20 - Home
17:30 - Meal prep and eat
19:00 - Daughter bed time
20:00 - Bed and browsing
21:30 - Sleep
I typically get between 5 and 6.5 hours sleep. I'm perfectly functional at this time and it's just something I've always done.
During my lunch, commute to and from work as well as whilst sat in bed I'm generally reading up on code articles / reference docs / Twitter etc to keep feeding my knowledge ready for my hour and half code time in the morning. I stick to this routine pretty religious. Im pretty deep into the gym lifestyle too so some days I'll switch my coding for a long walk (10k steps) for low intensity cardio which is a great refreshing time to read up some more on all my typical Dev outlets.
You can get a hell of a lot of work done in the mornings. Regardless to how tired you feel. I've found this routine has actually got my mind active and primed ready for work.
It's also worth noting there is a big difference between coding after work late at night as opposed to waking up early to do it. There is a loss of clarity in the former method, I used to do it a lot. However since life being more complex and wanting to keep my evenings free for family I've found a real good balance by waking early and having some time to better myself.
Wow, thank you very much for your post and sharing your schedule. Really inspiring how one can organize a day. You have all my respect. ;)
This is a very good write up!
I tried this a year or so ago. I would wake up at 4:30am and sleep around 8:30-9:30pm. It was amazing. I was just playing with the idea so I wasn't committed, I spend most of the time out running or gym. Now I want to do it again, this time do other things with the time before everyone wakes up.
After reading your post, shortly after you might have posted it, I started reading - and finished - the book you mention. My god it was rubbish! It felt as though the guy was only interested in selling his "free" content of his blog (our time, to sign up to the free stuff isn't free)
Anyway, as so often with self help books, a well written post would do.
Thanks Aurel, and sorry to hear the book wasn't for you. Sometimes the core message of a book can be sufficient to put someone in the right direction, I guess. :)
And I agree, sometimes a single blogpost is all you need.
The world would be boring if we all liked the same stuff.
Anyway. I'm glad to report that since reading this post I've become a morning person!
Honestly. I now wake up at 4:30am. Sleep no later than 8pm.
What I did the first day was what I did all the time, the bathroom stuff then checked my internet feeds with a coffee.
I noticed that that take so much time. And at the end I achieve nothing.
Now, by 4:40 I'm sat in my kitchen table with a cup of coffee writing. I start with "idea vomit" where I just try to come up with app ideas. Then I write in my journal. Then check the web for a bit, then hit the gym. But I want to refine it so that I'm working on personal projects first thing.
Wow, that was really fast. Congratulations! :)
I think this is a start for a greater transformation. 4:30am is really an impressive time to get up.
As you mentioned, in the morning you notice how much time certain things take. It's easy to burn your time by watching TV in the evening for four hours. But you won't get up early many times to just check some feeds, I guess. The morning is precious. And that's why you'll rather be productive then.
+1 to "Anyway, as so often with self help books, a well written post would do"
I often find that youtube video summaries of short non-fiction self-help books are just as effective. For example the youtube channel 2000 books
I have started doing that for a few months, becouse of my dissertation and project related to it and now I am pretty close to the finish. So it really works, but I have still some problems with trully morning routine like everyday meditation or journaling, but I think that with every day I do it better. Quite helpful for me was Tim Ferris post and podcast about morning routines.
Thanks for sharing and for the link to the podcast! Really helpful. :)
You feel like you needed a post only when you read it. Thank you!
You're welcome! :)
Hey Patrick, this is awesome.
My issue with waking up early (apart of how hard it is) is that when I had some free time before I go to work I get so absorbed on what I'm doing that I can't leave it. When I code or play before going to work I always end up loosing the train and end up more stressed up. I just don't want that flow to end and always squish 5 more minutes that I should.
I finally found what works for me, I moved far away from the city, now I have 1h+ commuting time most of it on train so I can just code or play there. There's no 5 more minutes, when train arrives to my station I have to get down.
Following @imthedeveloper my schedule is
8:00 - wake up & shower
8:55 - drive to train station (time to add tasks for the day talking to the phone)
9:15 - train picks me up (time to code or play)
10:15 - working day
14:00 - launch time
19:15 - train back to home (time to read or organize my life)
20:15 - drive to home (nice moment to think about the day)
20:30 - home
Then I play with my kid and/or watch TV until dinner is ready (wife is chef, she won't let me cook), we usually go to bed at midnight.
If I'm specially fresh I might play or do something else until 1am or 2am but usually I need 8 hours sleep, I used to sleep 10+ hours when I was unemployed so that's it for me.
I'm in Spain anyway, here the schedule is delayed from north Europe or EEUU a few hours.
I am thinking about that for a while. Mayby your post will be the thing that push me to take this into an action :)
I hope so. Good luck! :)