You come home from school or work at four and feel dull, barely not collapsing from a long day, and then you are supposed to work on your business? You try to sit down to do something and cannot get any deep work done. You rest for a bit, and it's already evening. That’s another day with zero progress; this day turns into a week, and you can complete this sentence yourself.
There’s a solution, but you may not like it. It’s to get up earlier than everyone else. By waking up early, you eliminate fatigued afternoons and evenings and replace them with highly productive mornings.
When you start to work, the second you open your eyes, you reach a flow so deep that it becomes impossible to replicate your insights. I feel at absolute peace in my work and the current moment. It’s a few minutes past four. My mind is clear and at peak performance. My appetite magnifies my focus. It is tranquil, and I do not see a single lit window when I look out. My competition is asleep. I have two hours of deep work left.
1. Is this advice right for you?
When purposeful work requires completion and school or a job distracts, you should get up earlier. Morning clarity is unparalleled.
My school starts at 7:20, and I’m usually home by 15:00. The problem is that I can’t focus sharply after school, socializing and eating lunch. I have to use herculean force to compensate. – That’s why I started to get up at 5:00 five months ago. I made working on my projects more straightforward. It served me well.
Staying up late to do a difficult task can work, but it may conflict with your job or school, noisy siblings, and finally, it’s hard to focus after an exhausting day.
Then, there’s a large misconception. Some people think they prefer evenings over early mornings. Let me tell you a secret. No one cares; I do many things I don’t like either. Additionally, when you are young, you can choose your rhythm; it’s a habit.
I admit, sometimes, I work till midnight and don’t get up early. I understand that sometimes creativity strikes right before bed, but nonetheless, getting up early gives an undeniable competitive edge—especially if you go to school or work, which tends to start early.
Therefore, I'm not a morning person, and neither am I a night owl. I’m Kiryl P.
2. Why get up early for
What’s work? When I began to work, I thought that doing something was work. No, work is what you get done. Work is output; input is your energy, attention, and resources. - One such input is focus. Another input is clarity. Because those inputs are higher, you get a lot more done. Every second working in the extreme morning counts by a magnitude more. That means two hours in the early morning contain more work than the rest of the day combined. That’s where the competitive edge lies.
Dreams are fantasies with a plan. Getting up super early does something to your personality. While every motivational speaker tells you to get up at five, you begin to feel a certain way by getting up at three. I believe that getting up super early demonstrates a ruthless commitment to your dreams. Can you not feel the energy of the night when everyone else is sleeping; how God gives even more to those who keep going while everyone else rests? You are telling the spirits that you are serious.
It’s cooler. At four, it’s cooler. When your room heats up to 29°C or 85°F, a cooler morning is essential for mental clarity. Sometimes life is simple
You won’t waste time. At extreme times, you don’t end up doing the bad habit randomly, and you will find it phenomenally easy to stay focused. Because you will distract yourself less frequently, you enhance your overall presence. Your work gets better, and at noon, you can socialize. Yes, you will get more from the day. Everyone has twenty-four hours, but some people get a hundred times more done.
Get up earlier than five. Because time in the morning is more valuable, you should use more of it. Getting up at 3:30 means that I have 170 minutes of focus before getting ready for school; getting up at 5:00 only leaves me with 80 minutes. Earliness magnifies.
On discipline. Succumbing to your primal desires leads to no long-term fulfillment. Chasing your insatiable cravings for instant gratification locks the deeper levels of existence. One has to strive for self-mastery. I believe that progress and growth are the greatest pleasures. Life is meant to be lived at one’s edge until one finds peace. I feel beyond bliss when I'm disciplined, confront my fears, and do the impossible. I also believe that one has to view life as a movie. This movie has to be one worth watching.
3. Some tips
3.1. Tips on work
Intermittent fasting. You must be slightly hungry if you want presence and mental
clarity. Have you ever felt brain fog? That’s caused by digestion, especially of carbohydrates. If you work with
brain fog, someone else will take the girl you want.
I made a silly mistake with intermittent fasting. I didn’t eat enough during the rest of the day, which
massively declined my muscle growth and focus. Therefore, I have to stress that you should delay food only until
the second your essential work is done. Then eat!
Start with the most challenging task first. It requires the highest attention and energy, so doing that first will yield optimal results.
Periodize. You can get up at 3:30 every day for the rest of your life, but doing that for 90 days should be enough to yield significant progress or even results. You’re not supposed to live hyper-focused your entire life. It’s a means to an end. After these 90 days, you can use a more leisurely schedule. Life changes; it isn’t permanent.
3.2. Tips on getting used
Use brute force. On May 1st, 2023, I woke up for the first time at 5:00. I was a bit sleep-deprived because there had been a village party the day before. For the next seven days, I had to push myself through that and woke up sleep-deprived every day. I also meticulously refused to press the snooze button to break this habit. In my experience, gradually changing and getting up 15 minutes earlier daily doesn’t work because it leaves too many temptations. You could press the snooze button and undo the day's progress. Getting over discomfort quickly is better than delaying it. Using brute force, you can get comfortable later on.
3.3. Tips on getting up
Lay out your outfit in front of your bed to remove decision drag.
Use an actual alarm clock to overcome the temptations of snoozing, viewing hot girls on the internet, or checking emails. You must keep your thoughts pure.
Not turning off your computer is a double-edged sword. It gets easier to start with work again, but it creates psychological pressure that something isn't done, which may cause useless subconscious unrest. That’s why I only do it rarely.
Leave your bed physically as quickly as possible. Get your heart rate up, and never
underestimate the power of posture. Sitting upright stimulates brain areas, which catalyze focus, while lying
down relaxes, stimulating specific brain areas. Working in your bed isn't natural; your bed is for sleep and
sex. It’s not for watching movies, indulging in your phone addiction, or working with a shitty posture, either.
Exceptions are allowed. Sometimes brilliance strikes me; I work for ten hours straight before I even go to
the toilet and consider leaving the bed. By ten hours, I mean ten intensely focused ones, allowing me to
complete a week’s work in a single morning. Those days are genuinely exceptional, only one in two hundred. But
exceptions don’t disprove the rule. Leave your bed the instant you wake up.
3.4. Keep improving
Practice. Maybe your current baseline is getting up at 9:00. Make that 7:00. After a
few months or weeks of practice, get that to 5:00 and eventually to four or three. Adjusting your daily routines
and biological rhythms will take some time, but they will ultimately help you perform.
Sometimes, trips or similar events confuse your rhythms. Three months ago, after two weeks in Barcelona, I
became inconsistent about getting up at 5:00 and started getting up at 8:00. Within three days of adjusting one
hour each, I got back to getting up at five, which was my norm back then.
Purpose. Remember what you are doing it for in the first place. If you feel like going to bed again, think twice and think of the pain you are saving yourself from. Remember to fight at first and to use slip-backs to improve further.
Sacrifice. What if some activity, such as a sports club, ends at 22:00? You need to set your priorities straight. Often, more is less, and focus means saying no.
3.5. A year after the publication of this text
We have July 2024, not October 2023.
A week after implementing this practice, I wrote 39,700 words in 20 days. I started getting up at 3:30 and kept doing that for a while; getting up early paid off. I was open to experimenting, and I noticed that getting up at 3:30 was my sweet spot. But then, as 12th grade ended, I stopped obsessing over getting up super early because there was little need to. I was getting up at 9:00 and going to bed at 23:00 for a while because the summer heat was unbearable. In a few days, I will go to bed at 20:00 and get up at 4:00 once again.
*****
Working in the middle of the night is a wonderful and enlightening experience. Rhythm establishes harmony. Thus, I believe in the power of the proper routine.
Life throws challenges to test your worthiness.