One of the big differences between being self employed and having a job is that I can stay in bed as long as I want to in the morning. I have always been an early riser, and used to typically get up in plenty of time to go to work. Normally I set my alarm for 6am and would be out of bed by 7am.
But was this long ingrained habit still necessary now I was free to set my own hours. Given that what I do requires a lot of thought, I imagined it might be more optimal to simply listen to my body. So I have been basically getting up when I felt like it. This resulted in me not really starting my working day until about 9.30 am. But I worked later than before so it seemed okay. But what I found was that although I was awake for the same amount of time and putting in rather more working hours I really wasn't getting the important stuff done.
I switched to setting my alarm for 7.00 am. This is an improvement, but I am still not happy. I am now working fairly normal hours but I am sure I can get more done. My aim is to carve out a new time slot in my day. I will get out of bed, do some exercise and then get down to two hours solid work at my desk before any distractions arise. Ideally I can then have breakfast and then have a normal chaotic day of interruptions and changing priorities in the knowledge that I have had a couple of productive hours already. Then the evening can be reserved for relaxation, reading and writing for pleasure.
Can I do this with a 6.00 am start? With 30 mins to go for a run and get dressed, that should work. I can then have a shower and a relaxed breakfast and still start my regular work day at 9.30 am. As it happens I have a very disrupted week ahead next week as I have two conferences to go to. That actually works well - because I can do some experiments and I have the long weekend with the Bank Holiday, so I can aim to have my new pattern established by the Tuesday.
Steve is worth reading on the subject of getting up early.
photo credit: JeromeG111 via photopin cc
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