
What’s the rush? The power of a slow morning - J253
https://www.wsj.com/articles/whats-the-rush-the-power-of-a-slow-morning-11546958541
======
emiranda
I've been waking up at 5am for the past 5 months so I can head to the gym (my
first telecom meeting starts at 7am). Because no one is ever going to bother
me between 5am and 7am, I've been able to consistently got to the gym at least
3x per week (trying to bump it up to 5x per week for the new year).

I started doing this because it was very difficult for me to consistently go
to the gym after work. Things come up, I get tired, friends want to hang out,
sometimes I just want to relax after work. But getting up and getting my
workout done in the morning has many benefits: Being physical in the morning
gives me an energy boost and is a great wake up call, I get my workout out of
the way and I don't have to think about it the rest of the day, the gym in
generally empty compared to the afternoon, helps me control my sleep cadence,
and I feel great knowing that I already accomplished something significant so
early in the morning (My whole workout usually spans between 1.5 and 2 hours,
I do a lot of stretching and like to take my time). I also try my best not to
use my phone aside from music and my workout/fitness apps.

Since I've had such great results from this, I'm thinking of trying to switch
it up by working on my side project in the morning and attempting to do the
gym in the evening.

~~~
jimmaswell
I'm really glad my workplace has a gym in it. I use it during lunch hour daily
and it works out great.

~~~
irrational
Same here. Being able to go for a swim, lift weights, using the climbing wall,
etc. when stuck on a problem is great.

~~~
dev1n
Where do you work? Would love to be somewhere with a pool to take laps in.

~~~
gadders
There is a gym below my building with a pool in Canary Wharf in London if you
are UK based.

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throwanem
I can recommend the practice; for the last few years, I've gone to bed around
10pm every night, and gotten up at five before heading to work around nine.
(Adjust to taste depending on your sleep needs; the important point is to give
yourself a few hours to yourself in the morning.)

In practice, this means moving discretionary time from last thing in the day
to first thing, and I think there's great value in that. After all, the things
we do with our discretionary time - don't we do them because they matter to
us? Certainly I do! And I've found that starting my day with them, when I can
approach them with a fresh mind, both improves my ability to pursue those
avocations, and gives me a better platform on which to begin a day of work
than scrambling to do everything at the last minute has ever done.

~~~
vollmond
For me at least (speaking hypothetically, since I haven't tried this), that
seems like it would fly in the face of "get your work done so you can play
without it hanging over your head." And it means that (if I have a fairly hard
work start time) I am watching the clock the whole time I'm using
discretionary time, whereas doing it after work means I can just go until I'm
tired, without really worrying about the clock.

~~~
throwanem
The work will be there either way. So I can choose to work first and come home
worn out from that and then try to do things I care about, or instead to do
things I care about first, that _don 't_ wear me out, and carry a sense of
satisfaction and accomplishment with me to work.

And, I mean, I'm not trying to _finish_ a story before work - not from
scratch, certainly. My current story is around 20k words right now, and it's
somewhere between a quarter and a third done. I wouldn't get it done in one
day if I had every minute to myself! And it'd be no good if I did. But if I
can add a few hundred words, or a few dozen that cover a point that's been
giving me trouble, or just a few pages of notes in my diary on where the
plot's going to go at a given point - and I _can_ do that in a morning - then
that's enough.

I think that distinction between _finishing_ and _doing_ might make a
difference here - if I thought about it in terms of the former, it'd only
frustrate me because I'd run out of time. Thinking about it in the latter
terms makes it a question of deciding and finding out how much progress I'll
make _today_.

I don't know if that's how it works out for everyone, and it's anyone's guess
whether it'll still work the same for _me_ once I get an elliptical trainer
into my apartment and start going ham on that every day. But this is how it's
worked for me, thus far.

~~~
tachyonbeam
I'd like to put my hobbies and fun things first, but, I'm a little afraid that
my performance at work would suffer, because I'd have less energy when showing
up to work, especially at the end of the day. I already often find it hard to
remain productive after 3-4PM. I'm worried that if I got up earlier and worked
on hobbies before going to work, I'd have even less productive energy to
dedicate to my job, and my performance would slide a bit.

~~~
throwanem
I’ve overperformed throughout my entire career. That’s almost two decades now,
and it’s already driven me into burnout once; I came back from that, but that
was a long time ago, and I’m neither confident I can do so again nor willing
to suffer through it again.

At this point I am absolutely ready to give less than all of myself to the
job, and more to the things that bring me joy and give my life meaning. If
that means overperforming _less_ at work, and closer to par with what’s
actually expected of me - if that means no longer giving 150% effort to my day
job, and “merely” 100% instead - then I’m okay with that, and so, per relevant
discussions, is my reporting chain.

If that changes - if it proves in practice that the company is unwilling to
support a transition from the heading-for-burnout precedent I’ve set to a
sustainable level of effort - then that’ll be a clear indication that this
company is not worth keeping on as a customer of my labor, and I’ll replace it
with a customer which is.

The tradeoffs are going to be different for everyone, of course, but I’m
convinced the same model generally applies, at least for those of us who have
a worthwhile product to sell in our labor. Given the enormous prevalence of
impostor syndrome in our industry, I wouldn’t be surprised if the product
you’re selling is more valuable than you’re in the habit of thinking.

And it’s also worth keeping in mind that every employer, with the best will in
the world, still has a strong economic incentive to convince you to undervalue
the product they’re buying from you. That incentive exists _because_ they’re
buying it from you, and want to do so as cheaply as possible. No judgment;
it’s a business, that’s the game. But you’d be wise not to take their word for
what your work is worth, and learn to play the other side of the game -
because the better you are at the other side of the game, the closer you get
to being paid what your work is worth.

------
ilamont
I can't read TFA, but wanted to note that there's an interesting statistic in
the book _Why We Sleep_ : Something like 30% of the population are hard-wired
to be "night owls" and 20% early risers. The author hypothesized that this may
be an evolutionary survival mechanism that allowed bands of humans to always
have people who were awake or more likely to wake quickly if threatened after
dark or in the early morning.

For the natural night owls (I am one) the power of a slow morning is just the
way we roll. I am so much more productive at 9pm than 9am, and have reworked
my daily schedule accordingly.

~~~
hexo
I'm unemployable just because of this. I cannot "work" in the morning or when
my employer thinks I have to.

~~~
jen729w
Okay so hear me out here. You can change. It’s not hard.

I am the owliest of owls. All my life, I’ve been up till 2am and struggled to
get out of bed, snooze the alarm, last minute, dash through the shower, hurry
to work, no time to think, sit down guiltily at 9:01am. I hated that morning
rush but whatever, “that’s just who I am”.

Now, I’m 42, so maybe age makes this easier. But my girlfriend is an early
riser, and she sometimes gets up at 5am. FIVE A.M. What? Mental.

Except when you do it a bunch of days in a row, and you see the benefits. You
know who else is up at 5am? Nobody, because they’re not idiots. So it’s an
_amazing_ time of day. It’s calm, it’s peaceful. Nobody bothers you.

The best part by far is right about now. It’s 9:30am here in Australia and
I’ve been up for 3.5 hours already (only did 6am this morning). It feels like
midday, yet I have the whole day left. It’s amazing.

The trade-off? You have to go to bed early, of course. But when you do this
regularly, your body just sorts that out for you. You _will_ be tired at 9pm.
Just you try not to be, buddy. No amount of telling yourself that you’re an
owl will change that. And, help yourself. Put the screen away, read a book,
you know all of this.

Also, help yourself in the morning. My advice: don’t be a hero. Don’t try and
get up and run a marathon. Just get up and put the kettle on. Slouch
downstairs. Rub your eyes. It’s okay to be sleepy, it’s 5am and probably dark
[0]. Have a cup of tea and a slice of toast. Read HN or Twitter or the paper
or a book or whatever. DON’T BE A HERO.

Now, it’s 5:45am, maybe 6am. Seriously, don’t rush. But now it’s 6am and you
are thoroughly awake and you are ready to go.

Enjoy the day. Just try not to be too smug about it, us morning people can be
a bit like that. :-)

[0]: Added bonus. You get to see sunrise!

~~~
lostdog
Like a lot of well-meaning advice, this did not work for me. Getting up at 5am
or 6am for a few weeks just means I feel tired all the time for a few weeks,
and it just takes me a couple days to (gratefully) revert back to the night-
owl schedule my body wants to keep.

The scientific evidence keeps showing that there are many people who are more
alert at night, but of course morning people and morning converts seem to
think that since waking up early works fine for them it must work fine for
everyone.

~~~
jen729w
No, I get it. It took me 40 years and like I say, maybe getting older itself
has something to do with it. Also I 100% would not have done it without my
partner, I needed someone to drag me along.

I do agree that the prevailing "earlier === better" mindset is harmful and
should go away.

------
mtalantikite
I've been doing this for years now and it's hard to imagine the old days when
I used to wake up, shower, and run into work. At first it started with just
waking up, making coffee with my aeropress, and sitting down to read a novel
for up to an hour.

The past 2.5+ years have been: wake up, stretch and pranayama for 20 minutes,
meditate for 30 minutes, make tea/coffee, write for 30-40 minutes, shower and
then off to work. (I've moved the reading to the evenings before bed.) All in
it's about 2 hours from waking up until out the door to walk to work.

My work days now start even more focused -- previously I'd just be sitting at
my desk being only semi productive, waiting for the coffee to kick in. It's
worth giving it a try for a couple months to see how it works for you.

~~~
hongshizi
Out of curiosity, what do you differently during your 30 minute meditation
than during the pranayama?

~~~
mtalantikite
For pranayama I practice things like nadi sodhana, bhastrika, and visama
vrtti, with kumbhakas depending on what I'm doing.

My meditation is probably closest to what people call vipassana these days --
it's watching the breath or another meditation object without any active
control of it (which isn't completely correct, as attention does affect the
breath). Pranayama on the other hand is an active manipulation of the breath.

~~~
hongshizi
I see. So do you practice pranayama prior to the vipassana in order to
increase the effectiveness of the vipassana? Or do they do function separately
for you?

~~~
mtalantikite
That's a good question. I view them as separate but interrelated, and often
times I'll practice pranayama without doing a corresponding meditation (e.g.
after asana).

Pranayama in many ways is exercise which readies you for meditation. The
Anapanasati Sutta makes reference to a form of it as a preparatory practice.
It has helped me investigate and understand bodily sensations that arise in
meditation that previously would have been distracting to me. Or to not be
overwhelmed with fear or thoughts in meditation when occasionally you realize
"hey, I actually haven't been breathing for a while".

Happy to talk about it more off thread if you'd like (email in profile).

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Tiktaalik
Yeah this is a core reason why a long driving commute is an absolute deal
breaker for me and probably why I'll never end up working for a big corp in
SF.

In Vancouver I can wake up at 7am, go to the gym in my building or the nearby
community centre, read, do some shores, have a lazy breakfast and still walk
or take a short bike ride into work at 10am.

I can't imagine throwing all that free time away just to sit in traffic.

~~~
neivin
I live in SF and your Vancouver day is the same as my day here.

I wake up at 7am, do my daily stretching routine, bike/ride the bus to work at
around 7:30.

I'm at work around 8:00 - 8:15. I have breakfast and work for 3ish hours. I go
to the gym two blocks from my office building at lunch, shower, and then go on
with the rest of my day.

~~~
extragood
Me too. The solution is to live close to work/easy transportation..

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georgeecollins
Habit is a really powerful thing when applied over the course of our lives and
the truth is that people tend to follow habits most at the start of their
days. If there is something you want to do every day (read, work, exercise,
relax) do it in your morning and it will become a habit.

------
mcqueenjordan
If it works for Jeff Bezos, it's probably good enough for me.

> He wakes up every morning naturally, without the aid of an alarm clock.

> "I like to putter in the morning," Bezos told a gathering of Economic Club
> of Washington, DC. "So I like to read the newspaper. I like to have coffee."

~~~
rch
I do this, but seasonality can be an issue. The last few winters I've added
some artificial lighting that ramps up before sunrise, with seemingly positive
results.

~~~
PacifyFish
Curious how you implemented this. I bought a Phillips “sunrise alarm clock”
about a year ago, but the light was weak and I didn’t feel a difference at
all. Did you hack together something yourself?

~~~
rch
Nope, I'm lazy: Lifx.

They were a little annoying to set up, but have worked well since.

------
ppeetteerr
Slow mornings are the best (if you can afford them)! Going for a walk, going
to the gym, making a real breakfast, walking to work, etc.

The last hour of a day is hardly the finest. If you move it to the morning,
you'll get to enjoy your day in three parts, not two: morning/body/mind/soul,
afternoon/work, evening/play.

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asynchrony
I was a lifelong night owl. Six months ago I decided to start going to the gym
and meditating every morning in an effort to completely reprogram my habits.
Now I look forward to the mornings and find myself going to bed as soon as I
feel like I can sleep. I'm convinced that our behaviors are mostly determined
by our habits, and we can freely change our habits with sufficient commitment.

~~~
zackb
Good one, same here. About 2 years ago I started doing just this. One hour of
seated meditation followed by exercise while still leaving 20-30 minutes of
"nothing" time before starting work. It has changed my life for the better in
so many ways its hard to overstate.

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__abc
Over the past two years of my personal and professional life I've materially
stressed slowing down to go fast. That means more down time to contemplate,
plan, think, etc.

I still get up insanely early (always been one of those people) but I use that
time for me between cooking, exercise, reading, thinking, meditating, etc.

Not sprinting to work (whether it be from home or in the office) has led to
less hours "working" but more getting done with higher quality.

Now, I can't all pin it on going slower. It is probably cumulative between
that time spent on me, focused on my kids (I take them to school almost every
day now), and higher energy/focus time on work.

I've always said you can't schedule creativity (and no matter what your role
within Product Development direct/indirect) we are all creative folks solving
hard problems. I just don't fill that downtime with staring at my PC and
instead invest it on me.

When in office I've even started taking a mid-afternoon nap. That also has had
a big effect. I'm kinda rambling at this point, but taking material steps back
daily have led to significant improvements in my throughput across the board.

$0.02

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beholdasun
I find that how much sleep I need depends on how present and moral I feel in
my life in general at that time.

At one extreme, I once attended a week and a half meditation retreat in which
you're up at 4, meditating for about 11 hours every day and the whole thing is
silent. I felt such heightened moral and mental clarity by the fifth and sixth
days that I began sleeping less, sometimes lying awake until 2 or 3am (and up
at 4), but felt full of energy each day.

At the other extreme, carrying on in a big city, I indulge in vices, deviate
from my notion of perfect morality, exaggerate in conversations, eat meat,
engage in reactive behavior with others, fail to keep up a meditation routine
etc., and I end up sleeping 7-8 hours like clockwork.

I have a twofold theory 1\. Internal monologue creates excess pathways in the
brain that need to be pruned, creating the need to sleep. Decreasing the
amount and degree of our internal monologue (sometimes called 'being present')
decreases the amount of these pathways and thus the sleep we need. 2\. Failure
to act rightly/morally/virtuously creates the need to sleep. The more our
daily actions are in line with our sense of right action, right morality, the
less sleep we will need. The deeper theory here is that immoral acts cause
neurological agitation that creates toxins in the brain that sleep flushes
away.

My theory is supported by my understanding of sleep as having the function of
'flushing toxins' from the brain and 'pruning' neurological pathways that the
brain determines not useful, such as a thought you had that day in your
internal monologue. Immoral acts tend to nag at us, even if only a little act
and a little bit, creating anxious internal monologue, compounding the need
for sleep.

------
jungler
The most effective thing for my mornings has been motion. I don't "get more
work done" in terms of sit and think time, rather, by making the first thing I
do be jog a little, maybe pick up a coffee, and relax, then I can face
everything else.

The alternative is that I spend the first hour of the day in the way that I
spend the last hour of the day, in front of a screen. Which doesn't seem to
work well for me.

~~~
beefalo
I really hope I can continue to live close enough to bike or walk to work. It
makes a huge difference in alertness when starting the day with some activity
versus driving to the office.

------
dpc_pw
ITT: Nice to have no kids. :D

~~~
war1025
I have three kids, though none are school aged yet. My mornings are when I
have the highest quality interactions with them. We are all the most well-
rested we're going to be for the day, which means everyone is likely to be
pretty agreeable. Plus we have our routine figured out, and going through the
motions gets us all off to a good start to our day.

(But also, the chances of me getting "An hour of meditation and reading the
paper" are roughly zero :) )

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theNJR
This routine makes me happier and more motivated3

No tech after 930pm (read books, Kindle is OK) No tech until I’m at the gym
around 630 the next morning (checking phone first thing in the morning is a
pit of disaster) Bath, meditate, journal. Work at 930am.

------
Taylor_OD
Goodness. I don't think I've ever met anyone else who values the slow morning
as much as I do. If I could I'd go into work around 10:30AM every morning. I
need 7.5 hours of sleep at least. Really 8.5 to be at my best. That means I'm
going to bed at 11PM and waking up at 7:30AM ideally.

If I'm going to be at work by 9AM then I have to rush around to do everything.
I've cut my morning activities down to do so but I'd like an extra hour or so
every morning. An hour and a half would be ideal so I could get the gym out of
the way.

But It doesnt look like that will happen anytime soon.

~~~
SllX
Out of curiosity, why not move your bedtime back a couple of hours? My own
bedtime is 2230-0630 and I have been contemplating moving it back earlier to
get more out of my morning as I tend to start work between 0730 and 0800.

~~~
Taylor_OD
I'm really a night owl. One of those people that just doesnt functional as
well in the morning. Or at least right out of bed. 6-9 are when I get my me
time before starting to wind down. If I moved my bedtime to 9PM I wouldnt have
that time. In theory I would gain it in the morning which would be fine but I
have other activities that require me to be up till 1AM most Friday/Saturdays.

------
war1025
I seriously considered switching jobs in December, as in had an offer and
accepted it before backing out and taking the counter-offer from my current
employer.

Honestly the deciding factor was that I couldn't stomach the idea of getting
up two hours earlier every day. My mornings are long, drawn out affairs where
I have ~3 hours to hang out with my kids, listen to the radio, do some chores,
and generally prepare myself for the day. Having had that for the past several
years, the idea of giving it up was just too much for me.

------
timcederman
Weird how casually they drop in that the one woman spends her time in the
morning selling essential oils, most likely via a MLM scheme (even mentions
posting on social media to support it).

------
becga
In my own experience, I believe people have been trained from a very young age
to "get up and GO" and for many years working in Software I would wake up and
immediately start thinking about work problems etc.

My conclusion is that it is a waste of mental energy which is very evident on
days you are feeling under the weather etc. These days it is all about a
gradual wake up, having a nutritious breakfast and spending time with my dog
(walking) before I leave for work commute.

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imh
I've done this for years and would totally recommend it. I didn't know it was
a growing "movement!"

I use it to foster an attitude of work-life balance. When you wake up in the
morning in order to go to work, work is the focus. When you wake up and hours
later go to work, it's just that thing that sucks up a lot of the middle of
your day. I stay way saner and less burnt out due to this habit.

------
el_cid
I was so sure I was a Night OWL - and I started waking up to learn Swift
development to change my career. And I got used to it. The trick is to go to
sleep early at a set time and do keep at it for a few weeks.

------
jacknews
I also wake at anywhere from 4 to 7, but in reality IMHO, that's still the
middle of the night, not the morning. Morning is when it's light.

------
mi100hael
For anyone interested in changing their sleep habits and becoming a regular
early riser, I found this guy's blog to be quite helpful:
[https://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/05/how-to-become-
an-e...](https://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/05/how-to-become-an-early-
riser/)

~~~
_tulpa
This is more or less devoid of any useful information...

 _When my alarm goes off every morning, I turn it off, stretch for a couple
seconds, and sit up_

Is what everyone already knows. The article implies that you somehow just do
this and conveniently ignores how useless that advice is for breaking or
replacing habits. Especially ones where you’re not going to be alert enough to
even remember that you’re supposed to be be doing something.

 _If you simply go to bed when you’re sleepy and then get up at a fixed time,
you’ll cure your insomnia_

This is not how insomnia works at all. _”If you simply be happy you’ll cure
your depression!”_

~~~
mi100hael
> Is what everyone already knows.

Is it, though? I know plenty of people who set 7 different alarms or
intentionally set their alarm half an hour early so they can snooze it 12
times.

~~~
_tulpa
That’s that’s not the point of that paragraph - the advice there is still just
as useless for anyone who might actually need It. It would also probably be
worse getting those instructions from someone who totally ignores how
difficult it is to actually follow them.

------
iheartpotatoes
Paywalled WSJ article. Curious, does this article consider people who have to
punch a clock, or is it just for the 3%-ers who can lounge in the morning?

------
pmatos
Am I the only one who can't read this because it's behind a paywall?

~~~
Sargos
If you go to [https://www.drudgereport.com/](https://www.drudgereport.com/)
then right click one of the hyperlinks and select Inspect you can change the
URL in the HTML to the URL for this article. When you click the link you will
be able to read the full article as WSJ whitelists drudge report.

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kareemm
Is it just me or is this article also paywalled for you when you click web =>
WSJ article? If so, is there another way to read it other than paying for a
subscription? I don't read the WSJ often enough to justify subscribing.

~~~
bduerst
WSJ removed Google users' access to articles, so the web link doesn't work for
them anymore.

Now the only way to view a WSJ article for free is if you're referred through
Facebook, I believe.

~~~
donarb
Most of the time what I do is go to outline.com. Paste the link into the box
and read the article just fine.

~~~
the_common_man
What is outline.com?

~~~
dacur
it's a free service that allows you to bypass some paywalls like nytimes,
wapo, and wsj. it strips out everything but the text.

------
flipetty
in my case, waking up with the sun is what works best. We are not naturally
adapted to waking up with a loud sound. We have been thousands of years waking
up by nature and the sun.

So since I started doing this, my life has changed

