5 Seconds Summary:
The blueprint to wake up early is quite simple but tend to be overlooked. Placed the alarm clock at the workspace with reminder of why the need to wake up early. Next, reduce idle time from the moment of waking up to the next activity. The last one, repeat the process.
-Don’t listen to the self-help guru, set the alarm clock.
I know some of you might not fully agree with me
Wake up naturally
Listen to the birds
Let the sunshine through
Wake up gently
Well, if you are not obligated to wake up early to go to work or school, congratulations.
You have the privileged that some of us don’t.
But the advice of don’t set up the alarm and wake up naturally doesn’t work for some of us
Whether I like it or not I have to wake up early. I don’t have a choice
Rather than being stuck in traffic for 1 hour, I prefer to wake up to my blaring alarm sound.
It’s not ideal, but I have to.
I love my work, but I need to bear the long commute hours
See, each one of us has a different lifestyle, priority, and nature of the work. Of course, if I have given a chance to wake up naturally, I will.
But that’s not the case for me, and I’m okay with that.
And I bet some of you are agree with me.
For students, the never-ending assignment, the grant to apply, the extra time we crave to be alone in silence.
Whatever the reason is, waking up early in the morning has a different meaning to all of us.
Why do you have to wake up early?
Is it to complete your unfinished assignment?
Is it to complete the grant application after so many months?
Is it for your freelance side hustle?
There is probably a reason why you have to get up early while the rest is still sleeping.
What you need to do is to set the alarm clock or alarm in your phone and place it on your desk next to the work you need to do that morning.
What I did is I placed sticky notes of my to-do list on my phone. Usually, I will place it right next to my laptop. So when I wake up to off the alarm, I am well aware of what I need to do or must do that morning.
The idea is to make us aware of why we need to wake up that early
And reduce the resistance that might obstruct the process. Ie prep the workspace the night before
If the need is for completing the assignment, place the alarm beneath the assignment paper, next to your book and laptop. Now what you need to do is off the alarm and ready to do the assignment
Sometimes, when you are still half asleep, you tend to just stop the alarm and go back to sleep.
When you add some sort of reminder of what to do that morning, it’ll help you have that sense of realization of why you need to wake up
I once hid my alarm on the stack of my research paper to force me to wake up to complete my thesis
Once we get the rhythm of it, it’ll become easier
Reduce idle time
This is another important aspect of waking up early
Reduce idle time
What is idle time?
The time after you wake up and shut the alarm off and the point of doing the next activity
The longer the idle time, the higher chances of you going back to sleep
The moment you shut the alarm, you need to immediately get up and do something.
Go to the toilet to brush your teeth
Or go to the kitchen to make your coffee
You need to get up and move
Mel Robbins have this very simple but effective method on this.
The 5 seconds rule.
“When you understand the power of 5 seconds decision that you always have a choice from autopilot to decision-maker, everything in your life will change..
…The next morning, the alarm goes off and I pretend NASA was there..I went 5-4-3-2-1, I counted out loud and I stood up and for the first time in my life, I had beaten the habit of hitting the snooze button”
–Mel Robbins
The advice seems oversimplified, but it works
Sometimes, we need that extra push for that extra early hour.
I experimented before, the backward counting 5-4-3-2-1
Well, it works and that’s what I did until today
…there were moments all day long where I knew (knowledge) what I should do, if I didn’t move within 5 seconds, my brain will step in and talked me out of it…
5 seconds idle time
5 seconds to help me get up in the morning
5 seconds that help me decide whether I should sleep back and write my article
Waking up early is not going to be easy.
But 5 seconds, is all you need.
Do not negotiate with your brain.
“ ..you have about 5 seconds window in which you can move from idea to action before your brain enters and sabotages you from doing changes”
-Mel Robbins
Your brain is wired to stop you from doing things that are uncomfortable and scary so your decision whether to wake up in the morning should overrule your brain
Be consistent about it
Like everything else, you need to make it a habit so it will become easier over time.
Consistently waking up at the same time is the basic rule of setting our circadian rhythm.
So if you have decided to wake up say at 6 AM every day, with 8 hours of sleep you need to be in bed by 10 PM.
Waking up early doesn’t mean that you need to compromise your 8 hours of sleep.
If you don’t get an adequate amount of sleep, chances are your day is going to be unproductive because you are tired and drowsy.
Consistently waking up and sleeping at the same time will set your internal body clock and over a few days, your body will get accustomed to it.
Now, you know the blueprint, there’s no more excuse
Wake up early, now.
