Wee Morning Hours

If you're crawling into bed at night, thinking about what you wish had more of your quality time your wee morning hours might be to blame!

Growing up on a ranch, with a dad who often checked irrigation water and was back in the house well before 6:00am, early mornings weren’t rare around our house. Those early mornings have carried through much of my life but I wouldn’t exactly say mornings have always been used wisely.

As a mom, I often find myself waking in the mornings to the thud of feet hitting the floor and the sound of a miniature elephant trodding towards my bedroom.  As sweet as it is to wake to a sleepy toddler coming at me, carrying his favorite blankie, I often feel like the day has just begun and i’m already behind.

As quickly as the day kicks off, it often ends with me feeling like I never got a chance to do the things I know my body needs or work on the projects that I want to spend time on. My days always seem to start out with high hopes of accomplishing great things and then my time gets directed towards things that have to be taken care.

There’s a boatload of people out there, working within the same 24 hours a day, who are accomplishing a whole lot - family, health, self, and business.  I had this fact in mind during my hunt for a new audiobook. My plan was to listen while my son slept on our drive from the ranch to town. Either my great love of all things breakfast or the fact that in the back of my mind I already knew I need to be getting my you-know-what out of bed earlier, I quickly settled on the book “What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast.” by Laura Vanderkam. Then, I hoped like heck that she was going to tell me to keep on snoozing until my kid wacked me in the face in the morning with his blanket. Wrong.

She laid it out there, in written (audible) English, the reasons why wasting time on mindless television or reading crap late into the evening isn’t worth what you are giving up by sleeping in.

As the day goes on demands out of your control increase. Energy is spent putting out these fires and even the mental energy thinking about what your “want” or “should” be doing depletes your ability to focus on tasks at hand. Yes, as the hours pass even if you are a ”night owl” you're less productive, present, and focused.

Laura’s research of many highly successful people concluded that they were all rolling out of bed well before 6:00am. This shift of time managment allotted them time to focus on the things in life they desired to make a priority.

Examples:

A mom who works late and never spends time at a family dinner can wake up earlier, make pancakes with her kids, and sit down for a family breakfast together and chat about the upcoming day.  That’s just as impactful as sitting around the dinner table. Let’s be real, it’s not about the steak served at night but rather quality time together.

Ever wake up feeling like a stiff ball of tension? Does it just go away as the day marches on? Not likely. Couple that with the stress hormone, naturally produced in your body while waking, and your whole day is out of whack. I can’t even count the number of times i’ve thrown on exercise clothes in the morning, with complete intention of getting around to yoga or a walk, just to take them off at night without a drip of sweat on them.  Getting your exercise in first thing in the morning gets your blood flowing, decreases your stress levels, leaves you already feeling accomplished before your day even starts, and i betcha you’ll be in a better mood by the time you are dealing with cranky customers or crying babies!

Working on a side project that get’s thrown to the back burner because of your day job? Are you physically and emotionally spent by the time evening rolls around? I listened to a story of a guy who runs a huge business during the day but spends two hours in the morning, when his mind is fresh, working on his side website project.

I know what you’re thinking “This all sounds great for them but where will I find the time for everything? I still need sleep”. Spend a day or a few days tracking everything that you do that day. You’ll start finding the hole you can shift tasks into and freeing up those early morning hours so you can spend your best hours on the things you value most!

TIME MANAGEMENT TOOL:

To get started you can print the free Old School Modern Mama Time Tracker.  

Old School Modern Mama,

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