Why Getting Up Early Makes You Overly Productive
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Photo Credit: MacUK @ Flickr
My boyfriend and I get up pretty early. Practically, every day – even on weekends. But, I think early rising is overrated. What are you going to be doing at 4 am on a Tuesday or 5 am on a Saturday? Of course, there’s plenty of things you could be doing.
Some of these things even involve healthy ventures. You could be working out or finishing some nameless outstanding project.
Anything.
Even cooking breakfast – only to find yourself hungry again at 10 am.
But, even if you do have ideas for the day, getting up earlier won’t guarantee that work will get done any better. And probably not any faster or earlier. So, what are you going to do with all that “extra” time? You’ve finished all your work before the Saturday morning cartoons – now what?
You find more work to do. Busying yourself with projects so you can catch up on all that elusive free time you don’t think you’re getting. Or, wasting time doing something else you’re not really interested in doing but feel you should because, now, you have the free time to do it.
It’s confusing. We always have things we should be doing. Yet, those things tend to factor themselves out of the equation of our to-do lists. Early risers have to figure out what will keep them (pre)occupied for the next 10 hours. I guess it makes us highly productive.
Maybe.
I am not entirely sold. Early risers like getting stuff done sooner than they have to.
After all, we’re already awake at 4 am. So, I think it’s better to get your work done when you can. Don’t rush to rising early just so it can get done sooner. You’ll only create more projects to complete.
And, in the long run, you might just turn into a workaholic. If you haven’t already planned your day out, there’s no point in getting up early.
Early rising is for people who’ve already made plans and expect to make more.
If you haven’t made plans, what are you doing out of bed?
This post is what I’ll be thinking about when I’m convincing myself to hit the snooze button tomorrow.
My husband and I actually have been debating wake-up times a bit recently, thinking that getting up earlier might be best. I think for me the issue is not getting more stuff into my day, but figuring out what time of the day helps me be most productive. Sometimes I focus much more easily if I wake up very early… and then I feel less guilty about sneaking in some afternoon Twitter time or blog browsing.
@Emily
Thanks for stopping by Emily. For me (and my boyfriend) getting up early is all about getting stuff done by 1 pm (don’t ask!). I’m not sure why he feels like things need to be done by the early afternoon b/c he only becomes more antsy when he doesn’t have anything else to do. I’m talking literal stir crazy.
So, what does he do?
Makes more plans and figures out more stuff to do. You can’t say that he’s not productive and it’s rubbed off on me quite a bit. But, I can’t help but think that sometimes it’s better to not have plans and not concentrate so much on getting anything (or everything) done by a certain time.