Time. I want more of it. But somehow my day seems filled with things on autopilot and all the things I want to do are all piling up - The pet projects I want to finish, the books I want to read. There are no more hours in a day left and I want to do and accomplish so much. So I spend my time paralyzed not doing anything. Because when you don’t do anything, nothing can go wrong right?

So I’ve reached a point where I need to do something about it. I’m at an impasse if you will. So I’ve started with a challenge. Today is day one. A physical and mental challenge. For at least 30 days. My end date is wednesday the 5th of December.

My current morning ritual morning chaos goes a little something like this:

  • 7.30 Wake up after hitting the snooze button at least 3 times and being very tired because I went to bed at 01.30.
  • Hurry while I get dressed and prepare breakfast and coffee for the three of us. The coffee I usually forget to drink.
  • 8.20 Leave home and bike my kid to school. Barely be on time so I don’t have time to read to him on school which all the other parents have time for. (And I hate myself for it)
  • I’m at work at 8.40 which is way to early, I’m usually entering the office with the first batch of employees. Now I can relax and have a coffee.

As you can see, this is far from optimal, stressful and there are lots of irritation and frustration points along the way. I need to change that.

What are my goals?

I want more time. More time for myself to learn and to develop myself. To learn new things, read more books and to finally finish that big pile of pet projects. More time to be spend with the people I love. Actually I want to better manage myself within the time I have in a day. In the madness of everyday life I come home and I clean a little and start with cooking for my girlfriend and our son. One of us takes him to bed and we run through his evening ritual. After that my engergy is gone. I want to change this cycle. Also; I don’t want to teach my son how I currently handle time and constantly be late for appointments with myself or with others. I want to be a good example of how to manage yourself and be productive. And teach him that almost everything can be learned when you apply yourself and hold yourself to it.

Peer pressure

I’ve decided to become more personal on Twitter and share this challenge, because having the social pressure has possitive effects and might help me achive my goals [pdf]. I want to share this daily.

Challenge

Before starting this challenge with myself, I’ve read up on a lot of resources to better prepare myself. I’ve also found a lot of tips on how to go about wakingup earlier. I even calculated my sleep rhythem with this handy tool and gain a little insight into how sleep rhythems work. Another good source of information is the Sleep Foundation, they have a bunch of interresting articles about sleep.

Schedule

This challenge is about creating a new morning ritual. Including the preparation the night before. And I’ve set myself some ground rules to not fail. Not really sure if this will work, but you have to start somewhere - I might change and optimize this along the way.

My ground rules/preparation:

  • Evening preparation:
    • Set the table and preparing my sons lunch.
    • Fill the water cooker and fill the coffee grinder. Can’t start the day without a fresh brew 😉
    • Pickout clothes(both for exercise and work) for the day to come.
  • Go to bed earlier - be in before 22.00. I’ve never had any trouble falling asleep, this usually takes me about 5 minutes.
  • No devices(laptop/phone/tablet) in the bedroom.

My ideal morning ritual looks like this:

  • 5.30 Wake up without hitting the snooze button.
  • 5.35 Get dressed for yoga
  • 5.45 Practice yoga for 30 minutes
  • 6.15 Have cup of tea and a healthy breakfast
  • 6.30 Read a book, write some code or learn a new skill
  • 7.00 Have an ice cold shower to get me fired up
  • 7.10 Normal morning ritual when my son and girlfriend wake up

I’ll post my progress on Twitter daily and with the hastags #WakeUpEarlyChallenge #30days and I’ll keep a record on this site.

Photo credit: Elisa Michelet on Unsplash