Waking:
When I wake up in the morning, I tend to lay in bed for a rather long time. I tend to pick up my phone and start going through social media– A trifecta of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. I’m not as attached to these things as I used to be, but I do think it feels somewhat suboptimal. It’s lousy information-diet. It would be weird to wake up in the morning and eat a cinnabon and drink a coke, and I would find that to be troubling. But because so many people seem to be online at any moment, it seems completely normal.
So I’d like to change that. I think the first thing I should do is make sure that I don’t have my phone in my bedroom. I go to bed with my phone, too, and that’s equally destructive. I should be able to improve my life substantially just by going to bed early and leaving my phone and laptop outside the bedroom.
Breakfast:
I don’t usually have it. I have occasionally prepared eggs (scrambled), but that seems like too much effort. I used to think that boiled eggs weren’t very appetizing, but I realize with a little salt and pepper and maybe a couple of cherry tomatos they can be quite nice. Add a glass of milk or a packet of milo (both of which I should always have in my fridge, because they are options that I enjoy sampling if I have them)
Toilet:
I like to read when I’m on the throne. Sometimes stuff on my phone, sometimes books. I read all of The Power Of Now and The Game on the toilet. I’m now going through Steve Wozniak’s autobiography iWoz, which is quite a fun and enjoyable read. I should make it a point never to bring my phone into the toilet anymore. There is a cost to being so constantly connected all the time.
Morning review:
This is something I think I ought to do but I’ve never gotten around to doing. I think because it’s not clear exactly what the objective is. Am I preparing for the workday? My days start with work, so I feel like I ought to do this when I get to work.
Morning Wife-time:
There have been a couple of moments in the past where both me and the wife woke up early, and we spent some time together before heading off for work. I really like that, it makes us feel closer and it fulfills some sort of need for closeness and family. It’s rough when we have to wake up and just rush to work and there’s no togetherness or intimacy. This is a good reason for both of us to wake up earlier in the morning, maybe have a cup of tea together and just appreciate each other’s company. Maybe read a chapter of a book or do some writing.
Morning exercise:
If I wake up before 8am or so, I’d love to go for a run or hit the gym. I think ideally I should wake up about 6am and just exercise immediately before anything else. This rarely happens because I rarely wake up early, and when I do wake up early I just feel tired and annoyed with the fact that I’m awake. I drag my feet into the day, which is really depressing when I think about it. I should have a reason to wake up in the morning. I have a goal of becoming a better runner, so I think I should tie that to waking early. Wake early so I can go for a run so I can get fitter and feel happier and more accomplished about myself. I’d also like to develop a gym habit, but for the time being I think just going for runs is way simpler.
Commute:
My commutes are generally unpleasant. I have a fantasy idea of going to work REALLY early in the morning, before the morning crowd, but that just doesn’t seem like something that’s doable in the immediate future. So let’s shelve that for “think about this once you already wake up early, regularly.”
Besides that, I’d like to either do some good reading or writing on the train. I could save all the good pieces of writing to pocket– I have a list of things in workflowy and such. I should lineup commute reads and do them. Or I could read a book on the way– I’ve found that book reading is quite a pleasant thing to do on commutes (as far as commutes can be pleasant.) They’re somehow less draining than staring at my phone screen– which does make sense. So maybe I should first prioritize books to read on the way to work– they shouldn’t be too challenging or complex, they should be pleasant enough for easy reading without me wanting to write in them, take notes, etc.
Prioritize books. Then prioritize phone commute reads (I get utlity reading and rereading things from paul graham, ribbonfarm, and maybe I should get into a bunch of the other writers I’ve got lying around.)
Reaching work:
If I reach work really early (rare), I’d like to have some time to plan out my workday. I should pick a most important work task for the day, and make sure that I get it done as early as possible. It would be amazing if I were able to get it done before lunch– that would improve the tone of the rest of my day, and make me feel a lot freer to rest.
I’d like to spend a few moments getting coffee and soaking in the atmosphere of the folks who are there earlier. There’s something about the coffee place I hang out at sometimes that makes me feel better. I guess it’s just the social animal part of me.
I’d then like to pick a specific task and really attack it. I don’t do that enough. Barely do it at all. What I tend to do instead is sit at my desk and then open up every single thing that I have, and then just bounce between them over and over again until lunch, then come back from lunch, get distracted for a while on random internet shit, and then bounce between stuff over and over again unless there’s a meeting or something that I need to prepare for– in which case I rush out those things at the last possible minute.
What’s the way out of this? Well, I shouldn’t be opening many things. I should pick a specific task, and then go somewhere where I’m forced to do the task and nothing else. I should even turn off my wifi if possible.