Nov 30, 20195 min read

Ep 164: Is it possible to only be a MORNING person SEASONALLY?!?!

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Being a morning person is glorious. I love it. There is something about getting things knocked our before the house, and most people in the neighborhood wake up. In fact, it's powerful and empowering. My problem has been doing it consistently, and for some reason, I think the seasons are to blame. So how to maintain that consistent dominating, productive energy all year long?

In this episode, we'll talk about...

The benefits of working early AM
What it looks like to acknowledge and work within energy levels
How to get the early AM benefits when you can't get up

If you listen to earlier episodes of this podcast, you'll hear me talk a lot about getting up super duper early in the morning, like my alarm going off at like 4:45, 4:30 somewhere in there. And me just getting to it. I mean literally when you're up that early in the morning, it is super silent that it frightens me and I need some type of background noise. I realize that sounds stupid, but the reality is this, when it's super, super quiet in the house, you're liable to hear anything. Something scratching, something squeaking, anything. So I need to have some type of background noise because it's silent. But that silence is so helpful. And that's what I think is one of the great benefits of working early in the morning is it's super silent. It's still, and for me, certain times of the year and all that, you start to hear birds chirping. It's like, "Okay, it's this beautiful storm, it's peaceful."

I like the feeling of being up before everybody else is up. Something kind of magnificent about that and my brain is fresh. My brain works very well in the morning. Now the same can be said to working late at night when everybody has gone to sleep and it is frighteningly quiet. All the same, can be true. Part of this does depend on just what kind of person you are and some people are early morning people, some people are more late-night people. Brains work at different times. Energy levels work at different times. So when it comes to getting up early in the morning and as much as I am a proponent of doing that, I also recognize that for me it's because of the way my energy level works. My energy levels tend to work pretty high in the morning. They tend to dip in the afternoon and late at night is very, very, very rough for me and some people may have a story that's the complete opposite.

Brains work at different times. Energy levels work at different times. (Click to tweet)

I think the important thing is you being able to identify what time, so pay very close attention to your body at what times you have those spurts of energy where you could just plow through things, you can knock off your list, you can get all these things done that you couldn't have done otherwise because you have the energy for it, the mental clarity for it, and if the early AM is for you, and I do think you've got a ton of advantages over doing it late at night. In the morning because you're getting things because it's the start of the day for you, you've had an opportunity to reflect, to get some things done and as the day goes on, it's easy to kind of flex and flex and say, "Oh, okay, well I don't really need to do this right now because I've got all this other stuff accomplished." Or sometimes the things that you've had planned for the day, I have had situations where I said, "You know what? that's not super valuable. That's not going to be valuable because I got this thing done already. I really don't even need to do this." Whereas if you wait till the end of the day, you've already done those things right. And again, you could say, well you could kind of chase the sun that could prepare you for the day to come and all that. And there is some validity to that.

Pay very close attention to your body at what times you have those spurts of energy where you could just plow through things, you can knock off your list, you can get all these things done. (Click to tweet)

But there is something just fresh and there is a, I know I use the word dominating before, but there is something to that where you really kind of own the day and you walk into that day with a sense of confidence and an extra sense of swag when you are up early in the morning, getting it done. Just kind of like you want to walk into the office or somebody and say, "Yeah, I get more done before 6:00 AM than you do all day?" Something like that. I know that has crossed my mind before, so I don't know about you all, but sometimes you need that extra swag of "I get stuff done. I am a CEO, I have things to do and waking up early in the morning can help you get that jump." So if you're thinking, Candace, there is no way though I'm going to get up early in the morning because it's not my jam. It's not what I do. I am not a morning person. Well you can still get those benefits of waking up early and one of the things I think you're just going to get the most bang on is the productivity and it reverts back to the energy level piece.

If you can take a week and write down every single day, capture those times when you seem to be just killing it, like getting through so much stuff and just getting it done, getting it done and getting it done. Write down those times and note for seven days what those times look like. Then go ahead and go back and say, "Okay, these are my energy verse times, I'm going to reserve these times." So now you get super intentional and say, "I'm going to block off this 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM" if it's possible for you. If you're still working your 9-to-5, that may be a little bit challenging for you, but let's say you find those blocks of time and you say, "Okay, these are the times that I'm going to dedicate to being super intentional and saying what I want to get done in these time blocks because these are my energy blocks. These are the moments that I want to protect and savor because these are the ones that are going to take me forward. These are the ones that are my power hours, my whatever you want to call them", but be intentional and protect them and use them wisely.