My 4am Adventure: Update

As you can probably tell by the lack of updates, I have so far been unsuccessful.  I tried for the first full week to get up at 4am, but never actually ended up getting up much earlier than usual.  Then the following week I guess I sort of forgot about it when I went to set my alarm one night, and I haven't tried again since.  But I am still planning on trying again!  I am working on making several lifestyle changes these days, and this is only one of them.

My 4am Adventure: Day 1 – unsuccessful?

If you haven’t read my previous post, check it out to find out what the 4am adventure is all about!

So how did it go?!

Well, to start, my body did NOT like going to bed at 9 last night!  I tossed and turned for nearly an hour before finally falling asleep, then woke up multiple times throughout the night at least once around 12, once around 1, and once around 3… and those are just the times I looked at the clock and that I remember! 

When 3:45 rolled around and my alarm went off, it’s safe to say I either did not wake up, or I just quickly turned it off and fell back asleep… Same thing at 4 when the next alarm went off.  As you might remember if you read the first post on this “adventure”, I set alarms to remind me to do each “task” throughout the morning.  I missed some of these alarms and woke up to others, but the ones I woke up to I just decided to ignore telling myself the usual “I’ll get up in 5 minutes”.   So from that perspective, today was a failure.

However…  I did actually get out of bed about 10 minutes earlier than usual!  Yay!  And probably the last 30 minutes that I laid in bed I was actually awake the whole time, instead of just waking up long enough to turn off alarms before conking back out.  So when I did finally get out of bed, I was not nearly as sluggish as I normally am.

And maybe it’s just because it’s Friday, but I was a bit more energetic and productive throughout the morning today at work.  Though by afternoon my productivity had definitely waned (now THAT was definitely because it’s Friday!) 

So all in all, I didn’t get out of bed at 4 or accomplish ANY of the things on my “morning to-do list”, but maybe it wasn’t a complete, 100%, total failure.

Now my original post said that this was going to include weekends... Because really, once you start something, it’s best to be consistent at least until it’s a habit.  But since today was unsuccessful, I am considering this weekend just getting up at 6 – still crazy early for a weekend in my book, but not 4am – and re-starting the 4am plan on Monday.  I guess we’ll see how it goes!

My Crazy 4am, Two-Week Adventure!

I recently read this post about a guy who did a “3am Experiment” and how he was never a morning person and he decided to start waking up at 3am every day.  I read it and thought “this guy is nuts!  This is just crazy!”  But me being the chronic over-sleeper and non-morning person that I am, I’ve been needing to make a change, and nothing has seemed to work.  So then I decided, it’s so crazy, it just might work!  And while I might be crazy, I’m also not a complete idiot, so I decided 4am was plenty early enough, and 3am would just be overkill.  Over the next couple weeks, I’m going to be chronicling my experiences with this and sharing them with you.

Why on earth would I want to do this?!  I’m sure most of the other early risers out there completely get it, but my fellow night owls are thinking this is complete and utter insanity!  My key reasons for doing this:

• I envy morning people.
• (Hopefully) be more productive!  While I have a feeling it will be rough getting started, if I’m successful, this will be giving me so much more uninterrupted time to get things done!  Laundry, crafts, baking, working out, work, cleaning, you name it!  Currently, I try to cram all these things into weekends, meaning my time is very unbalanced.  Most of my friends live at least a few hours away, so to spend time with any of them is an all day event.  So if I want to spend a few hours with them on a Saturday, then that’s an entire day that I can’t do any laundry or other general maintenance cleaning type stuff around the house.  And since I enjoy spending time with my friends, sometimes I will go a couple weekends of just doing the absolute bare minimum until it all piles up, and then I have to spend an entire weekend doing nothing but cleaning and laundry and boring stuff!  If I am doing a little bit of that every morning, then I will have so much more free time to do the things I enjoy on the weekends!
•  Sanity has never been an option for me.
•  I need a change.  My current routine is not really working for me.  A gradual change hasn’t really worked for me, so I’m shooting for something more drastic!

Why on earth am I blogging about this?

• I am hoping it will help keep me accountable!
• For those of you who know me and think this is utterly insane because I rarely wake up more than 10 minutes before I need to walk out the door and I always set 10 alarms each morning, this could be pretty entertaining.
• This worked for that other guy, maybe it will work for me, and if it does, maybe some of you will want to try it.

The plan:

For the next 2 weeks, I’ll wake up every day at 4am – including weekends.  I currently go to bed between 11 & 12, and wake up around 7 each weekday, (I need to leave my house by 7:15, so you can see where this is a problem) which means I need to be going to bed by 9pm… Which seems even crazier than waking up at 4!  The “3am Experiment” goes much more in depth about all the things he did that made it work for him, but since I am not him and therefore the exact same things will not work for me, if you decide to try this, read his posts, read my post, and then think about which of these will work for you!  His list consisted of the 7 items outlined below, but the comments next to it are how I think it will apply to me: 

Plan Your Morning the Night Before – This makes sense!  I am always much more productive when I have a very, very specific to-do list!  This also helps because I can do some prep work the night before when necessary.  If I know I am going to do a load of laundry, I know I need to sort it the night before and make sure no one else’s clothes are in the washer or dryer (I don’t live alone).  If I know I am going to go for a run instead of doing a cardio DVD, then I should set out weather appropriate work-out clothes instead of just shorts and a T-shirt which works fine inside.  When I plan my morning, I set an alarm on my phone for the time to start each task.  This serves a dual purpose of 1) reminding me when to stop one task and start another to help me stay on track and 2) serve as extra alarms in case I oversleep.

Have Something to Look Forward To – This will be KEY for me!  Based on past experiences, I’ve always had an easier time getting up in the morning when it’s for volunteering, going to visit friends, etc. as opposed to going to work or class (when I was still in school).  Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of things about my job I enjoy, but it’s not exactly exciting to get up at the crack of dawn, drive 45 minutes, then sit at a desk for most of the day.  My current “something to look forward to” is a lot of craft projects and some baking.  I’ve also been trying to get back into the habit of working out regularly, which once I get into the groove of things will be something I look forward to.

No Snooze, Ever – This one does not seem feasible to me.  For one thing, I’m not exactly a “snooze” person so much as a “multiple alarms” person, because I can’t rely on myself to actually hit the snooze button instead of the off button.  For now, I am trying a 3:45 alarm, a 4:00 alarm, followed by reminder alarms for each task in the morning.

Change Alarm Sounds – I’ve always done this, and it rarely seems to help.  I’m continuing to do it, but it’s not really a change for me.

Hard to Reach Alarm – This is useless for me.  I get up, walk across the room, turn off the alarm, and lay back down.  Never once has this worked for me, and I’ve been trying this one since I was about 10 and in the top bunk of a bunk bed… still didn’t work.

Routines Create a Habit – This one is big!  I am hoping to follow the same general routine each morning, and just vary the type of work out or type of “fun activity”.  The routine I have come up with is:

3:45 – wake up!

4:00 – Actually get out of bed and get dressed

4:05 – put a load of laundry (already sorted the night before) into the washing machine

4:10-4:45 – Fun activity!  - This is my “something to look forward to”  Today’s item was “make blankets”; I’ve been sewing some receiving blankets for a friend who just had a baby.  Which to me, is fun!  One day next week I will also bake fresh muffins.  For you, this might be working on a puzzle, writing, reading the paper, or cooking a fancy breakfast.  It doesn’t matter what it is, as long as it is motivating to you!  Ideally, this does not include super sedentary or non-stimulating activities like watching TV or video games, but maybe those will still work for you!

4:45 – Switch laundry into dryer

4:50-5:20 – Work out!  Today’s activity was a cardio kickbox DVD that I like.  When the weather warms up a bit, I might go for a run instead! 

5:20-5:30 – short break – I always need a few minutes after a workout to catch my breath and “recover”  I typically eat a protein bar for breakfast, so in this time I will eat a protein bar and hydrate after my workout

5:30-6:00 Shower and get dressed.  I enjoy taking longer showers, so this is incentive to stay on track through the morning… If I am running late, I only have time for a quick shower.

6:00-6:15 – hang and fold clean laundry.  Honestly, I have never timed myself on this and have no idea, but I figure this should work

6:15-7:00 – Dry hair, finish getting ready.  The downside to long thick hair… a good 30+ minutes to dry it.

7:00 – Drive to work!

The night before, I get home from work at 6, and have to go to bed at 9.  This gives me 3 hours to eat dinner, clean up the kitchen, and do any prep for the following morning (sort laundry, etc.) and have some general relaxation time for TV, reading, etc. that I don’t like to do in the mornings for fear that I will fall asleep. 

Know Your Body­ – basically, this is just knowing how much sleep you need each night and what is realistic for you.  I knew that 3am was NOT going to work for me and I didn’t need it to!  4am was a bit more realistic for me.  I typically get about 7 hours of sleep each night, which is how I came up with my 9pm bedtime.

I’ll be trying to post at least some sort of update each day, so check back for more updates if you’re interested!