The early birds gets.. TBD
I’ve just set my alarm for five thirty in the morning.
I’m not going to the airport, Melbourne is still under restrictions so holidays have been put on hold.
I don’t play sports, so this isn’t me off to team training before sunrise.
This is me trying to figure out what productivity looks like to me. And according to every single productivity guru on YouTube productivity looks like getting up earlier than the general populous and giving yourself space to start the day with some extra time up your sleeve. You know, for activities.
I’m a barista, I have been for the majority of my working life (for those of you playing at home I’m thirty three, so about seventeen years). So my mornings start off pretty early anyway, most of my jobs have started at six or six thirty in the morning so whenever I saw people talking about early morning routines I would laugh because in order to accomplish any of them I’m have to be getting up at four, which isn’t an hour for consciousness, four doesn’t even exist.. it’s purely hypothetical. But now I have a job that opens at eight, so my shift starts at seven thirty and I don’t need to wake up until six thirty! What luxury!
I found myself honing down my morning routine to a perfect thirty minutes. So at seven o’clock I would be in my car, podcast on and a bowl of overnight oats in my lap, munching while steering with my knees and collecting my thoughts before a day of slinging lattes. The thirty minutes were, however, just that; exactly thirty minutes. Enough time to get up, shower, do my skincare, have a poop while checking the internet (I know, aren’t humans glamorous) and then out the door with not a minute to spare. The other day I forgot my phone, had to turn around and then realised it had just fallen out of my pocket and into the nowhere zone between the door and the seat. I was ten minutes late for work and my whole set up was rushed and I started my day without the need for coffee to give me an anxious kickstart. This got me thinking about bettering my rhythm, so that even if something like this happened I would have more time to backtrack, or at least be collected enough already to not have to backtrack in the first place. So six thirty was pushed back to six, and let me tell you, revolutionary. I didn’t feel stressed, at one point even I found myself drinking a tea while staring out the window watching the sun rise.
Bloody ideal.
But now I’m really chasing that early bird high. The tea was one thing, but what if I could sneak in a session on the indoor bike or look like a moron attempting a yoga flow like so many vloggers do with a steaming glass decanter of filter coffee in the background?
“I could be that guy?”
Surely it’s not just a veneer of centred productivity? Surely these people are true to their word and practise what they preach? I choose to believe yes. So this is why I’m setting my alarm for an hour that seems relegated to people who microdose and cyclists, just to see what an extra hour in the morning can do for me. Follow along for the results I guess!
What are your morning routines and do you have any success stories?