Multiply the Hours in your Day Right Away

Multiply the Hours in your Day Right Away

You always want more time in your day, more time to do the things you love. Well as we talked about in the last post about Pruning and Batching you were able to free up counter-productive tasks.

Remember that everything you feel may be productive, could actually be lowering productivity.

“Is there something better i could be doing with my time?” – The key to Pruning.

Sometimes busy schedules can only be pruned so much that you simply need more time. Where else do you find time?

Waking up Early

Oh no! The worst 3 words many don’t want to hear. “I’m not in high school anymore, I don’t need to be on the bus by 6. Work starts at 9.” If you usually wake up at 7:30 for work and leave at 8:30, imagine if you cut down your preparation time by 30 minutes. That’s 30 min. a day 5x a week, over 100 hours a year.

Sounds productive! Right?

I’m lying to you and if you hear this “tip” it doesn’t work. When you know you’re on your way to work in an hour from waking up, you’re not going to hurry up and do something productive right before you leave.

“Yes I can, I can do 30 minutes of cardio, jump in the shower for 5 minutes, eat breakfast for 5 minutes and be gone, so there!”

All that sounds fine and dandy on paper, but let’s look at the real picture, we never allocate enough time for certain tasks. When we go and find more time for the regular chores, we cut out the productive time, the “cardio” time.

After a while, we figure “What’s the point, cardio’s down to 15 minutes, not worth it, and back to bed I go!”

If this sounds familiar give me an “Amen.” I’ll say it with you.

The magic key? Waking up earlier!

Successful people are known to wake up early, it’s the best way to automatically create more time for your goals.

Remember what we talked about with “Finding your Adventure“, you never SETTLE!

Thus, there is always something to be reaching. Maybe it’s just reading for 30 minutes a day, perhaps reaching out to a new contact every week and building a relationship there, or, for me right now, it’s creating new content on taking control of life as an entrepreneur.

Whichever it is, you need a buffer of time to be making your goals happen. As Deacon Bradley mentions, set time to work on your “play” (you’ll need to check out his post to see what ‘play’ I mean.

Time is a valuable asset, each second that goes by we never get back. Most successful people will say that they value their “time” more than any other asset, even more than their wealth. Wealth is something which can be multiplied, time remains fixed for each individual.

You have the same amount of time to do something adventurous with your life as Richard Branson, Elon Musk, Steve Jobs etc. We’re all on the same level when it comes to time, but that extra time in your day when you wake up early is your advantage in “multiplying” your time.

Steps to Waking Early

1.) Prepare mentally or write down what you plan to do in the morning. Don’t try and stumble out of bed and figure it out as your groggy state will tell you there’s nothing better to do but sleep! We call that your “drunken state.”

2.) Set your alarm clock. You may do this already, but now you need to find a fixed time to set and stick with it throughout the week. On the weekend you can let it slip a tad, but stay consistent. Your body naturally adjusts to waking up. In college, I found getting up at 8 o’clock was the worse thing in the world (not to mention for a class I hated). Now that I wake up around the 6 o’clock hourly regularly since graduation, if I woke up at 8, I’d be wide away. Give your body time to adjust, it will get easier with time.

3.) Figure out if you’re more productive Before or After your shower, getting dressed, and breakfast. I’m more productive before I get into the shower, because showers are, first of all, my favorite (as creepy as that sounds). However, once I’m in the shower, it’s go time for work/activities for the day. Figure out your “production zone.” Perhaps you need just a cup of coffee (hate coffee…) or you have a need to feel clean, whatever, figure that out.

4.) Get to a good stopping point. Start your day on a high note by accomplishing something, it’s fun, it’s motivating. Sometimes you may have a multi-day project, but set your goal for that day, and that’s your stopping point. Start small, start strong!

I go through stages of many weeks getting up perfectly without the snooze button, and other times it may be the opposite. Sometimes I get upset with myself when I let a week slip, but that’s more de-motivating than anything.

I realize I’m doing something millions of others will never do and that’s what makes me different, that’s what makes me unique.

Are you unique? How’s your morning routine? Share below!