Can we get more time during the day? (and change from night owl to early bird?)
Most people wish they had more time. If I had more time I could start writing my book, I could fix the wobbly chair, or I could exercise more. It's busy with one kid, three kids, no kids... I don't have time. I don't have time to do the things I want to do.
Does any of this sound familiar? If only we had more time, right?
Maybe, it's not quite that...
Time vs. Energy
I thought the same thing for most of my life. If only I had more time, I could write a book. I could draw more cartoons. I could exercise more. After 5 years (or more) of kicking the tires and telling myself I wanted to write a book, but not doing it, I knew I had to back up and do a deeper investigation of the situation.
That's when I realized I watched a lot of movies on Netflix and YouTube TV. On any given week I'd watch 3-4 movies at night after the kids and wife, were all tucked away in bed. Sometimes it would be half a movie one night and finishing it the next night, but I still had time to watch movies.
How did I have time to watch movies but not write?
What it means to truly not have time
To truly not have time means your niece and your nephew both have soccer games at 11:00 AM on Saturday at two different fields. You want to see both of their games, but you can't because the time won't allow you to be at both places at once. If you go to your niece's game, you then are unavailable for your nephew's and therefore really don't have time.
If it rained the night before, then the grass will probably still be wet until at least noon. You can't mow the lawn in the morning now. You'll be attending a family birthday party at 2pm and still have to pick up a gift on the way there, so you don't have time to mow your lawn. You don't have time, today. A combination of the wet grass and your previous commitment doesn't allow you to also mow the lawn. Even though your original plan was to mow it in the morning, the rain from the night before took that time from you.
So why didn't I have time to write?
A couple of months ago this article wouldn't even have been written and available for you to read. Maybe it would have existed somewhere in the back of my brain, but never written down for someone to read.
So what changed?
That's when I realized I didn't have the energy.
I had the time, not the energy. Writing is hard. Writing is time consuming. Writing makes you think and makes your brain burn a lot of calories. Watching a movie doesn't. I didn't have to think, I could just lay back, relax, and enjoy. It was a minimal effort activity.
At first I tried to "just do it." I still think Nike has a great slogan and there are plenty of times when I would talk about doing this, doing that, about writing a book for my business... but talking doesn't get it done. So, "just do it" I thought.
This did make me stop watching so many movies at night, but watching movies shifted to reading not writing.
It was a step in the right direction. I would read a lot of interesting things about business, marketing, web design, and occasionally more "random" topics like archaeologists think that humans tried to raise & domesticate cassowaries (the most dangerous bird in the world) before humans raised chickens.
As exciting as all of that was, I still wasn't writing. Reading still required less energy. I could stay up to midnight reading from my phone while lying on my pillow slowly dozing off before I put my phone down and realize I must be too tired to continue. Reading must not require much energy at all if I can read while falling asleep. So that brings us to the next question...
How do you get energy to do what you want?
- Be selfish—prioritize yourself
- Wake up early—start the day working for yourself
Before I break down both of the points above, it is important to note that "working for yourself" can be anything. For me it was writing, for you it might be to exercise, or to paint, or to record your podcast, or start a business, or even clean the house because a clean house makes you feel good and you're too exhausted to do it at night. So what does "be selfish" mean?
Being selfish means prioritizing yourself.
It means the first thing you do with your energy is something that you want to do. Instead of waiting until the end of the day when the energy tank is close to empty, you start the day working for yourself—when the tank is full.
Every decision you make during the day requires energy. Often it is tiny amounts of energy. One small decision at a time. Eggs or a muffin? Bacon too? Did I have a muffin yesterday? Like tiny little gnats, one small decision is almost unnoticeable. It doesn't feel like any energy was used, but it was. One gnat sometimes goes unnoticed. 2-3 gnats flying around are becoming bothersome, but you wave your hand a couple of times and it seems to be okay. A swarm of gnats? Now we have a problem!
As one decision turns into two, turns into 100 throughout the day, your energy is drained more and more. It's very easy to not notice it. It is also the reason why Steve Jobs, Barack Obama, and Mark Zuckerberg wear (wore) "life outfits"—the same style of shirt and pants every day—it's one less decision to make each morning. They can save that energy for another decision later in the day.
The problem I had was I didn't have time in the morning. I did have the energy, but with trying to get ready for work and feed the kids and get them to school or daycare, there was no time to work for myself. That's when I forced myself to move from a night owl to an early bird.
Waking up early (even when you're a night owl)
I now wake up at 5 AM every day to work for myself. Why 5 AM?
My 7-year-old daughter wakes up at 6 AM every day—if she sleeps in. Normally it is slightly before that. We have a digital clock in her room that she can see from her bed, and the rule is she has to stay in bed until at least 6 AM. Let's pause, I get it—6 AM to a lot of people is already early and maybe earlier than they wake up... maybe a LOT earlier. I used to be like that too. Before my wife and I had kids, I could wake up at 8 AM and still have enough time to get ready in the morning, get out the door, and be to the office by 9 AM.
In the past, 7 AM would have given me an extra hour to myself, now it is 5 AM.
Night owl to early bird doesn't happen in an instant
I'm not going to lie, it isn't necessarily an easy transition. It took me awhile to get used to it. Going to bed an hour or 2 earlier is hard to do at first when you're not used to it. And regardless if you can fall asleep or not, I mean mentally it is tougher too. You are used to that extra time so you have to use self-control and force yourself to do it.
The good news is, it gets easier.
Force yourself to wake up at 5 AM (or whatever time you choose). Tip: choose an hour earlier to start. After you are used to that and you want more time, then do another hour earlier. Even if you couldn't force yourself to go to bed as early as you wanted on day 1, day 2, day 3... very soon you will be too tired at night to keep staying up late and you'll want to go to bed early.
It's your time—no one else's.
Remember, this is YOUR time. You work for you and only you during this time. Be selfish. Don't check emails. Don't hop on Facebook. Work for yourself. Do an exercise routine. Write articles. Write a book. Start a business. Clean your house spotless. It is now time for whatever you decided for your "you time"—use it!