Not all of us jump out of bed, eager to start the day with a quick bout of exercise. No 5K run before breakfast. No Jillian Michaels, Tracy Anderson (or Richard Simmons). Deep stretching means reaching for the coffee and rummaging through the back of our closet to find something (clean) to wear. Running an obstacle course involves avoiding the debris left by small children or pets as we stumble out the door.
Let’s face it—we’re not all on the same page when it comes to early morning activity. Some of us are a little slower and our engines need to warm up before we really get going. Is there anything wrong with that? Not if you’re happy with it and it’s working for you.
We all have different internal clocks and a prime time when we are most productive. Some of us accomplish a great deal before 8 a.m., while others thrive in the afternoon. And the hoot, hoot, hoot of the night owls can be heard across the land after dark.
It’s all working fine, but then… Your boss calls an early morning meeting, or your long awaited vacation starts with a 6 a.m. flight. How can you adjust, when your normal routine is to hit the snooze button the maximum number of times?
Get ready, get set…
Prepare for your rude awakening the night before. If you organize yourself in the evening, you’ll save time in the morning. It’s almost guaranteed when we procrastinate and don’t think ahead, despite knowing we need to get up with the roosters, that will be the day the alarm doesn’t go off or we can’t find our car keys.
Pack your suitcase, don’t wait until the morning. Find clothes, shoes, car keys, papers, and phone and set them out in advance. Organize a breakfast snack to eat on the way to the office, if you won’t have time to sit down. Set your alarm 15 minutes early, if your internal system insists on a snooze button hit or two. Fill the kettle or coffee maker and set out everything you need. Get children organized the night before too. Make it a game, hand out prizes. In other words, plan and prepare for your early morning departure.
With a little advance work, you won’t be the last to arrive at the meeting, complete with disheveled hair, tissue stuck on your shaving cut, or an unidentified splotch on your top (which the fashion police will swear you wore twice this week already). You won’t hear your name blasted through the airport advising you to declare yourself to a gate agent immediately, as your flight is departing in 30 seconds and “everyone is waiting for you”…
Reset, go!
It feels great to be on time and arrive in a calm frame of mind, ready to participate in life.
It’s too easy to get in the habit of always being late, or barely making deadlines. How can we reset ourselves to take charge of our early mornings and become one of those “how does she do it? » people? We’ve already given you some basic suggestions, and at risk of sounding like a commercial, just rinse and repeat.
Researchers tell us we can retrain our brains into new habits by practicing desired behaviours until they become second nature. One reason resolutions to change don’t always work is we tend to try to change everything at once, and inevitably, we fail—simply because we’ve loaded too much on ourselves.
So start with identifying one small thing you can do to make your mornings less stressful. It could be always putting your keys in the same place. Or making a brown bag lunch the night before. Try organizing your clothes for the week on Sunday evening, or making a checklist of things the kids need for school. Use sticky notes as memory joggers. Practice the new habit until it becomes second nature, then add another small change. Before you know it, you’ll find you have a serene sense of calmness and control each morning. We may even see you walking a very surprised and appreciative dog…before breakfast.