Early to bed and early to rise

It is 5 AM as I write these words.

I have always been an early riser, ever since my days at boarding school. But since last few years I have been waking up at around 4.30 AM. Waking up this early has changed my life. I wake up this early every single day.  Average Indians wake up at 7:15 AM. Guatemala citizens wake up the earliest in the world at 6:15 AM and Greece wakes up last at 8:29 AM.  So as you can see, I get a time boost of almost three hours, compared to the rest of my country.  Time means every thing in today’s world. So those hours are incredibly beneficial.  Time boost is truly powerful.

Second advantage I have found is Fitness consistency.  Lot of people prefers to go to gym or do their fitness routine after a hard days work at office.  Its tough. Your motivation is drained, you are tired and hungry.  By waking up early, I have the extra time boost to be regular to my gym. I have realized that by waking up early I have been able to be consistent in my fitness routine and achieved my goals.

I go to bed around 10 PM. India average is 12:15 AM.  How do you spend your time after 10PM? Either hanging out with friends, or watching Netflix or drinking alcohol. 

The truth is late hours of the day are never spent productively. They are spent to do thing which don’t require much efforts. Where as when you wake up early hours, your mind is fresh. The early hours are most ideal to spend on solving complex issues. Your after 10 PM hours are wasted hours. Early morning hours are creative hours. Another big advantage of early hours is you are alone. Undisturbed. No distraction. No one is awake to call you or text you. No TV shows to watch. The world is not running at 4.30 AM so the distractions will be significantly low.

You will be free to be productive and powerful. Since nothing else happens at that time, you will be able to dedicate your time to be construct a good habit. I personally work on all my to do list for the day, responding to all emails and assigning task to my team between 4.30-5.00. I am able to achieve at least 3 hours of my day work in this half an hour as there’s no distraction. You can also use this time to do things that can get you some extra money. Things which you cant do during your office hours. May be write a blog. Maybe manage your finances, investments.

I spend some time in managing my finances, maybe process a few images from my last photography trip, which I can sell through stock photos or send to publishers. That gets me some extra money. There are various ways you can generate extra revenue working on line in these extra hours.

I truly enjoy early morning time of peace, that time to myself, when I can think, when I can do creative things. And I see every day the greatest feats of nature – the Sunrise. I go for my early morning run as the sun rises and sky turns from dark blue to orange to light blue. What a glorious morning it is, every day.