Putting Your Morning Hours to Use

There was once a time when the earliest I’d ever make it to bed was 1:00am, and if I wasn’t so lucky, it might be somewhere between 2:00 – 3:00am. The morning hours weren’t a time for waking up, but a time for getting into bed. I’d usually wake up the next same day feeling tired, groggy, and sluggish; accomplishing very little and pretty much wasting away my entire day. I missed the early morning hours, which are by far my most productive, and so it felt like the entire day I was playing catch up with the rest of the world. Everyone else had already been up and going, but here I was just getting out of bed.

Consciously, I knew that the early morning hours were my most productive, but actually taking advantage of them was what I found difficult. 10:00pm would roll around and instead of winding down for bed, I’d have this urge to stay up late doing absolutely nothing at all. I’d flip through channels on the television, browse the internet and check pointless emails, listen to music, or if all else failed, I’d make a midnight meal and throw in a movie. Although there’s nothing wrong with doing that here and there, by doing that almost every night I was robbing myself of my ability to wake up early; thus losing the morning hours that gave me my biggest boost in productivity.

Of course, there are only so many hours in a day, so it’s easy to counter this argument by saying “well instead of doing that stuff in the morning, why not do it at night?” and that makes sense. Instead of my busiest work getting accomplished in the morning hours, why not do it at night since I seem to be staying up so late? The problem is, when you wake up in the morning your mind and body are refreshed and ready to start the day (assuming you got enough sleep.) However, at night, even after a day of just lazing around the house, your mind and body aren’t nearly as sharp as they are in the morning. I say mind AND body because it doesn’t matter if the work you have to do is physical or mental, it’s still going to be more difficult to accomplish. Yes, I know plenty of people who work out at night and I’ve done it plenty of times myself; but I can’t say I know too many people who go jogging at 2:00am or start pumping iron at midnight. Your body is just too tired to give it 100% after being used the entire day. Instead of doing those things late at night, it’s much easier to get in the habit of going to bed at that time and doing it first thing when you wake up. Although physical work at night can be tiring, mental work is even more exhausting. Try writing or doing anything that requires a large degree of mental exertion and it can become extremely difficult.

Because of this, I developed what I like to call the 2 Hour Rule. It’s a system that allows you to make the most of your morning hours, getting more accomplished by lunchtime than most people do in an entire day. You can wake up, get your most important tasks wrapped up, get your workout completed, and STILL have time to kill before it’s even noon. It allows you to take advantage of the more productive morning hours and then gives you the rest of the day to enjoy. There are few things better than eating lunch and realizing that you have the rest of the day to do WHATEVER YOU WANT. You don’t have to feel guilty about it either because you’ve already taken care of your work for the day, so it’s not that feeling you get from procrastinating where it looms over everything you do. It’s like going out for the day to play golf, but then realizing that as soon as you’re finished, you have to race home and take care of a project for class or work. What fun is that? Sure, playing golf may take your mind off it temporarily, but it’s hard to fully enjoy things when you know what’s waiting for you at the end of the light. Wouldn’t it be much more enjoyable to instead play golf and then go out with your buddies for dinner afterwards? You can just enjoy the day at a leisurely pace and not have to worry about anything when you get back.

The 2 Hour Rule makes that a reality and it doesn’t follow some complex algorithm or set of rules. It simply states that when you wake up, AFTER eating breakfast, work on your most important piece of work for the next 2 hours straight. I know quite a few people that like to wake up at 5:00am, but for me I find 6:30am to be the most balanced. After I wake up, I go make a nice breakfast and usually by 7:00am I’m ready to get started on whatever it is that I need to do. Using this website as an example, maybe I’ve decided that I want to work on a particular article or brainstorm a list of topics. From 7:00am – 9:00am I would do nothing but write and brainstorm, taking no breaks and not letting any distractions get in front of me. No internet, no television, no cell phone, no radio, no CD’s, nothing. During these morning hours my mind is refreshed, so writing comes much quicker to me than if it were late at night. Once 9:00am rolls around, I take a 30 minute break to go grab a bite to eat or maybe listen to music, and as soon as 9:30am hits I repeat the process until 11:30am.

Let’s assume that I finished writing my article in that first 2 hour block, and so now I’m going to go workout. I start my workout at 9:30am, but it only takes me an hour, meaning I’m finished at 10:30am….now what? If I don’t have anything else to do, then I can call it a day and begin enjoying myself. I’d probably go get a shower and be all ready by 11:00am, meaning that it’s not even lunchtime and I’ve not only worked out, but I’ve also gotten my most important work finished for the day. If I decide to catch a movie with a friend afterwards, I don’t have to think “man, when am I going to find time to get that article written? And will I even be able to get a workout in today?” They’re both already out of the way, and I can spend the rest of the day doing what *I* want to do, not having my schedule dictated by a pile of work waiting for me.

Some people complain about this schedule because they have too much work to be completed in a 4 hour block. They have projects so large that it may take days of straight working to get it accomplished on time, and getting done before noon just isn’t a realistic expectation. I completely understand this, but to make the most of the 2 Hour Rule, you have to integrate it on a daily basis or else you get a huge back-log of work waiting for you. If someone tells me something like that, my first question is “well why are you waiting until now to finally get started on it? If you had starting working on this weeks ago when you got it, putting in 4 hours every morning, it would have been done a long time ago.” You can’t go into this system with a huge pile of work and expect it to miraculously take care of itself. Most of the people I hear complaining about how much work they have to do have waited until the 11’th hour before getting started, meaning their running around franticly trying to finish things up.

The other major point is that you don’t HAVE to stop working after those 2 hour blocks are up. Maybe you procrastinated on a project or maybe you just have a ton of errands to run; but you can still work as long as you’d like. Even if you have finished up all your work, that doesn’t mean you have to lie on the couch and watch television all day. A lot of days I’ll still brainstorm and outline topics for this website, or if I have a huge list of errands to run, I’ll start taking care of those. Just because you CAN be lazy afterwards doesn’t mean you should; and who wants to live a boring life in front of the television all day anyways? The purpose of following the 2 Hour Rule is to give you time to do the things that matter to YOU during the bulk of your day, and not be tied down due to other obligations. Take that class you’ve wanted to take but have never had time to do so, or meet up with an old friend over coffee. The world is at your fingertips, and you can do all of these things without the guilt of having other projects waiting for you when you get home.

I also realize that for most people with full time jobs, this isn’t a system you can implement on a daily basis. Your morning hours are either spent sitting in traffic or working in the office, and that’s perfectly understandable. Even if it’s not something you do on a daily basis, get in the habit of implementing it on the weekends if possible, allowing you to spend most of the day doing what interests you and not being held up by other work.

To summarize what’s been said:

Keep in mind that you don’t always have to finish up your work during these 2 hour blocks. You’ll probably notice you work much more efficiently during these morning hours, and so that’s why the most effort is concentrated at that time. If I’m writing an article for this site and it’s particularly long, I may very well not finish it during the morning, in which case I just wait until the next day to pick things up again. I make sure to take care of any immediate work and to get started on projects early, that way I’m never in a rush to get things done. Why is it so effective for me? Because I practice it EVERY DAY. 7 days a week I wake up early and get started on what needs to be done, so I’m always ahead of the game and never forced to play catch up. Keep in mind too that different time frames may work better for different people. The morning hours are almost always the most productive, but some people may wish to start at 5:00am, while others may wish to start at 8:00am. The choice is up to you, but I’d recommend playing around with it for a little while before settling into one specific time. Even though there are probably a few days here and there where you’ll be out and about late at night, you can still easily follow this system. If you’re out until 2:00am and don’t get to bed until 3:00am, you may not wake up until 10:00am that morning; but it doesn’t mean you can’t be productive. Since your morning hours are mostly spent sleeping instead of working, you may notice it’s not as easy to get things done as it was on other days where you woke up earlier, but you can still get things moving.

So put your morning hours to use so you can enjoy yourself once in a while; stop complaining about having so much work to do and be proactive in how you manage your time. While nothing is ever foolproof, getting into this kind of work habit if you aren’t already will tremendously boost your productivity levels AND leave you with more free time. You’ll notice your days feel much richer and more fulfilling (because they are) and that you’re able to spend a lot more time doing what you want instead of dreading what you don’t want.