So over the last week, I’ve been getting up earlier and earlier to help me prepare for my upcoming Europe trip. The idea is that I won’t have to shift my circadian rhythm quite as far and so the jet lag will be more manageable.
But interestingly, I think there’s a chance I’ve stumbled on something else… I actually seem to generally feel way more calm, focused, and productive when I get up earlier.
It doesn’t seem likely or even possible that this could be a primary cause for the things I’ve described in other posts. And yet, when I think back… I feel like it’s actually conceivable.
Almost all of the times when I’ve felt really good in the past, I was getting up early.
Sometimes it’s because I just got back from Europe and so was on an earlier cycle. Other times, I just randomly got up early.
The only times I described feeling really good and having it last for a long time were times when I actually got up early for extended periods of time: usually because I’m coming back from Europe.
Or, when I first got on CPAP and felt I didn’t need as much sleep so I just got up early all the time.
It’s hard for me to believe that there is a direct physiological reason why this would be, e.g.: getting up before the sunrise does something to my mood directly.
But it could just be that I start the day with an abundance mindset. I can take it easy. I have plenty of time. I usually catch up on emails immediately and then proceed to knock out all my important items for the day before I even really receive responses, and then I’m essentially done with all my tasks right at the outset.
That could honestly be it.
And then I also tend to just sleep a little bit less overall, since it’s hard to go to bed so early. Normally I wouldn’t think that would have any benefits, other than the obvious one: if you sleep less, you’re awake longer, which means you’re generally more tired when you go to bed which may carry benefits.
The big thing that triggered these thoughts is that today, I got up pretty early (6:15am) and got my day started. My to-do was absolutely packed. I went tubing yesterday and didn’t finish any of my big tasks.
This included some start-of-the-month items. I have three large tasks I do near the start of each month, and I never do more than one in a day because it’s just too much.
And yet… Today, I did both billing and updates in the same day. And that’s in addition to doing tons of other things, including some very cognitively-demanding things. And two long meetings.
I didn’t feel like I was sprinting at any point, I just… Kept going. Slowly but surely I finished everything, including some not-work tasks that had been lingering on my to-do.
I even cooked dinner rather than just heating something up.
And now, I’m writing a blog post.
Nothing felt that different but looking back, it was a spectacularly productive day. And the only explanation I have is that I woke up early.
Again, I’ve been more excited about far more plausible explanations and been left quite disappointed, so more than likely there isn’t much to this.
But you never know. It actually does make sense.
Even if it’s not a total explanation, I think much of it actually makes enough sense that I should probably be getting up around 6am every day going forward.
We’ll see how that goes!