Waking up is difficult. There are some things that I find I have trouble with in life, and the number one thing is getting up. My entire life I have spent most of my time late for a multitude of things – and the reason for that is a my hate for getting up.
Anything, you name it. School, work, activities, the gym, anything, I have been late to because of my hatred of getting up. I don't know where it started from, but I remember having it for all my life.
I have tried many things to help me get up, from alarm clocks to having someone call me, to cold showers. None of it seems to work for a time. I only end up back to sleep, and find myself waking up as my alarm has been blaring for another hour.
why is this such a bad thing, well, its not like I have a bad life. I live in New York City, I have a social life, and I still get my stuff done at work. I was even promoted this year. The big deal with waking up early for me has been learning the importance to doing things that are important not urgent.
What is important non urgent – well it is the thing ths that make you get better. Most things are cur into 4 things in life – important urgent, importnat non urgent, non important urgent, and unimportant non urgent. It is called the Eisenhower matrix.
Of course everyone is forced to do important urgent things. Stuff is based on surviving. If you cant do those things you have a crisis. The problem with only doing those things is it makes you a reactive person.
This keeps you where you are. You can never be great by simply being reactive.
The other two categories are not important ;-).
The big one is important non-urgent. The important non urgent quadrant leads you into things that can improve your life. Stuff like exercise, meditation, writing, reading – the things that can make you a superstar in life.
I have recently found that the morning is a groat time to do that, because the rest of the world isn't up. I can make myself a better person without having to react.
How do I make that happen since it hasn't quite worked in the past?
I make use of it by the alarm water post it method.
As you can see I am horrible with names.
I use it as a three pronged assault to make my like a lot easier.
First thing is first, you need an alarm clock.
I know, alarm clocks stink, but you need something to kick off this habit. 😉 that word cue is important.
Next you need a post it note, and some water. The water is something you need to drink immediately when you wake up, it gives you mental function, and water is something your body needs. IT something we often forget to get to, but trust me, it will fuel you later.
Post it? Well, you need something to make your dumb lizard brain stay on task.
I use the post-it by writing 5 things on it (not too much not too little) for me to do that important non urgent.
After I do that, I go to bed.
When I wake up, I cut off the alarm (I use a phone call from IFTTT – free 🙂 then i drink the water, as much as i can. You should feel yourself getting up. Then I sit down right in my office chair and start on the first thing.
Don't worry about the scope of things you are going to do. The first few days the post-it note should be filled with dumb things you hate (I had pay bills,write my went check, get a check I had been forgetting to deposit… see it below) but in a few days, you will be getting to things that are interesting.
I have been doing it for 45 minutes early.but you can push that back further and further to do more interesting things.
The key takeaway for this is that you have the power to get rid of those nagging tasks – and get something done that significantly improves your life with a little bit of investment.
Win Win!
From the desk of Adam Thomas 