Itâs no secret that getting up early is supposed to be more helpful if you want to get things done. As an early riser myself, I can vouch that this is true. Even as a young kid, I never wanted to sleep in. In fact, I had was the opposite problem. Every morning when I was little, my mom would leave a note taped to my bedroom door telling me what time I was allowed to get up and leave my room. Usually, she illustrated the note, often featuring a smiling sun with specific times like â6:30â or â7:15â drawn next to it.
As an adult, not much has changed (minus a note appearing on my door). Now, I can get up as early as Iâd like, although I still have to play the waiting game, in a way. I usually wait until I hear my downstairs neighborâs morning alarm to go off before I use my treadmill, and the struggle is very real.
My favorite part of getting up early is how productive the morning can be. At night, hours can be frittered away, whereas in the morning, itâs less tempting to waste time online or linger on personal projects.
A few weeks ago, I set a new goal: get up at 4:30 every morning and work for a few hours (before my neighborâs alarm was even close to ringing). I wanted to slice off any evening hours that werenât very productive and tack them onto the morning hours, making them more efficient. What could go wrong?
Of course I tested it out.
In order to get enough sleep, waking up at 4:30 requires falling to sleep at around 9:30 p.m. Even if youâre used to getting up by normal early-person standards (5:30 or 6 a.m.), adjusting to that extra hour makes it a little tough to go to bed. Youâre not tired yet, and thereâs the temptation of the phone. Then thereâs the panic that settles in because youâre supposed to be asleep.
But the morning was a breeze. Thereâs a fine line between nighttime and early morning, and 4:30 is it. The sky shows no signs of daybreak, but you can feel that the night is over. There are some cars on the road. There are some birds singing. The news channels are in full swing. The air feels different. Although I was a little tired at first, that went away. At night, I willingly went to sleep at 9 p.m.
The next day was a carbon copy. It was easy to check off everything on my list.
But something inevitably breaks the cycle. An important phone call occurs before bed. Or you have to be out until 9 p.m. Or youâre suddenly too hungry to go to bed. The world doesnât shift for the early sleepers. I made it two days.
My thoughts? There are definitely pros: getting everything checked off your list, working without interruption, the feeling of accomplishment. And there are also the weird side effects: wondering why Starbucks doesnât open until 5 a.m., waiting extra long for people to respond to your emails, feeling like the day is over by 3 p.m.
Itâs not always a realistic plan. The outside world can sometimes shift priorities â family group chats over text message, conversations with roommates, that last minute work deadline, forgetting to put your clothes in the dryer for the next day.
And in the end, is it worth skipping a Monday night making fun of The Bachelor until 10:30 p.m. or not reading another chapter of your book after a long day? Maybe not. But 4:30 will always be waiting for you, productivity in hand, should you decide to return.
