The 6am routine

June 25, 2012

So, I had another of my bi-monthly urge to write a blog post (and I suspect I ll write a few more before I hibernate again)

Why? I woke up at 630 and I felt happy. Satisfied. At peace.

I had written before about being a producer in the morning, and I did follow up on it. I have been tracking my wake-up timings almost every day since November ‘11, and I have been steadily pushing them towards the 630 mark. It was very nice to see so many 6s and so little 8s.. I was exercising regularly in the morning, so I felt healthy. I occasionally took an afternoon nap, but usually I got some momentum going before lunch and I was quite productive in early June.

AND THEN,

I took a vacation. Ofcourse you dont track your wake up timings during vacation - and there was this 2.5 hour time difference, lots of excuses and I went back to averaging 8am-ish (still not bad for vacation I would say). And then we took up this wonderfully amazing trek to the Himalayas (written about here and here) and there, nature beckoned me to wake up at 5am (and I did, much to this poor guy’s annoyance).

But then, I had to come back to normal life (after 2 days of chilling out at home) and I fell sick. And being sick, as we all know is the mother of all excuses.

The last 4 days (includes a weekend) in my wake up log reads : Thu- 9am, Fri- 815am, Sat - 1030am, Sun - 8am and it just didnt feel right.

One of the toughest things about being your own boss, in a early stage startup which is just figuring its way out is that you CAN get away with waking up at 9am. People assume you were working till 1. Nope, I slept at 1130. That’s 9 and a half hours on a weekday. I dont know about you, but anything more than 7 and a half hours, totally screws up my energy levels. And it did. I conveniently told my partner I d work from home (you know, to save on bus fare, food etc.), and there I was, a lost soul wandering at the abyss of low energy trying to salvage some work.

Yesterday night, I told myself the magic phrase you got to keep telling yourself when you work on a startup - No more bullshit! New week. Old rules. The wake up log reads 25/6/2012 - 630am and after some nice hot ginger tea and a blog post (being a producer!), I feel like a King!

Have a great week! :)