Waking Up At 4 Changed My Life In 5 Ways
A Productivity Hack I Should Have Adopted Earlier
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It has been about 2 months since I started waking up at 4 in the morning. This has become a habit now, with me not even needing an alarm to wake me up. I had often heard that early to bed and early rise is an amazing way to have a fruitful life, but I never really implemented it.
About 3 months back I decided to actively work on generating passive income by creating content online. I started with YouTube and started working on it whenever I got time through the day. The problem with YouTube was when you are recording videos you have to have absolute silence around you, now with a 2-year-old at home this was nearly impossible.
I had two options, either work when Skylar is asleep or wake up early every day. I initially decided to opt for late-night content creation but soon realized it was not working since after a whole day of the job, socializing and running around Skye, a drained-out man does not look great on video, so I decided to switch it and start waking up early in the morning and wrap up before Skylar wakes up. Although I slowly moved away from creating videos to writing, the habit stayed on, and I noticed this was helping in more ways than one.
More Dedicated Time For Project
Everyone has 24 hours in a given day, there is no way to increase it. With my 9 to 5 jobs and other social commitments, I hardly had any time left to concentrate on my new creative endeavors. Waking up at 4 gave me the extra time I needed, compared to before when I used to sleep at about 10ish and wake up at 06:30, I got an extra 2.5 hours every day which over the past 2 months has compounded to an extra 152.5 hours which I could dedicate to my projects. This essentially translates to an extra 20 work days of 8 hours each. I booked this extra time to only concentrate on my writing and another passion project my Etsy Store. Since it is early in the morning and away from all distractions the focus helps me be twice as productive compared to other times of the day.
More Focus
In ancient traditions of Ayurveda, there is a concept called Brahma Muhurta, this is the auspicious time about 1.5 hours before sunrise when the cosmic energies of the universe are said to be at their peak. This is said to be the perfect time to start the day and the mental clarity in this duration is unmatched. This is ideal since clarity of thoughts and focus is essential to create good content.
This additional focus is what contributes to much better productivity. I have noticed when I write at this time it is way easier to get into the flow of things, helping me write a complete blog within about a couple of hours. I also use this time to read and engage with other writers’ content. The clarity of thought at this time helps me absorb others’ content in a much more meaningful way.
Feeling Motivated
One of the other big factors that contribute to high productivity is high motivation. Every day when I wake up at 4, the task of waking up itself feels like an accomplishment, so I am starting the day with a win. This feeling of accomplishment cascades into other things I work on throughout the day. I usually have a target task for the day it could be writing a blog, editing an existing blog, generating new ideas or just interacting with a certain number of writers on Medium on a given day. Once these tasks have been accomplished you feel less burdened through the day which helps you to concentrate on other important things like time with family.
More Time For Family
Once the tasks for the day are complete I have a lot more time to spend with my family, as against before when I had to cut into the family time to make space to create content. I would be lying if I said I don’t think about writing at all in the time I spend with family, but it is not as much as before. This has largely got to do with the fact that the tasks I defined for the day are already completed. I can still jump in for a few minutes here and there to make notes of new ideas I generate throughout the day, but this is not as time-consuming.
Having More Time Through The Day
It’s not just the extra time you have for family, but also the extra time you have for yourself which helps you.
I am an avid gamer and tech enthusiast, but you might have noticed I hardly write about either of them. The reason is simple, I want to avoid burnout. For now, I want to keep my gaming and tech escapades separate from writing, since if I mix the two there is a high chance of burnout.
I learned this the hard way, I think one of the main reasons I decided to move away from YouTube is that due to it I started gaming to create content, I used to record every gameplay, and constantly think about how to generate more content. Gaming became a chore rather than something I love. Now with all the extra time I have, I can game without burning out and still create unrelated content. Not just gaming, this extra time also helped me concentrate on my workouts which has helped me maintain a healthy weight.
Conclusion
As seen just the act of waking up early has greatly increased my productivity as well as the quality of time I can dedicate to other things. This increased productivity has helped me create almost 40 new blogs on Medium in the last 60 days. This is about a blog every two days, which has amassed about 3000 views and almost 300 new followers in a short time.
Waking at 4 may seem like a big task initially, but as you force yourself to do so, slowly it will become a habit. A habit that helps you grow professionally, and personally as well as stay healthy.
So when are you planning to adopt this hack to productivity? Or is this something you already follow, let me know in the response section.
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