Productivity in the AM When You Are NOT a Morning Person
I am on a ROLL with these productivity articles recently aren’t I! I think it’s because I finally have a system that works for me and now that I feel all wisdomous about it, I have to run around sharing it with everyone I meet.
I am not a morning person in the least. When I see these morning routines of Tim Cook and Oprah Winfrey and I see how they are up at 3 am and 4 am, all I can just think is why? Never mind the impossibility of it. Just… why? Now 3 pm and 4 pm, on the other hand, that’s what I’m talking about. Every day, I am suddenly very inspired, motivated and awake between 3pm and 4pm. I don’t know how and why that happens, but it just does. The best ideas come to me around this time, I am most creative at this time and I work faster and more efficiently from this hour onwards.
For the record, I think asking everyone to become a “morning person” is bad advice – if it worked for you, great. If it didn’t, that’s great too! People who say that night owls (or evening people like me) just lack the disciple to be morning people, excuse me, but how dare you. There is a certain discipline involved in working methodically away while everyone around you is asleep (or taking a tea break). Some of us are just not wired for it, okay? When I tried to do the morning person thing, my brain and body were so confused. Sure, I am up earlier, and I could do things at 9am that I usually can’t but when it came to 3-4pm, my brain both started to hit a lull because of having woken up early while also simultaneously trying to be alive and awake. While I did get more things done in the morning than I usually would have, they took me longer, and they weren’t the best of what I could have done. Somehow being a morning person also seemed like I had lesser hours in the day.
But as someone who had a 9-5, I get it. You have to be productive in the morning sometimes. For me, it was … challenging to say the least. Because not only did I have to get things done in the morning, I had to get quite a bit of things done within half of my working hours. And when I’m hitting peak productivity, it’s often soon time to go home. So here are some things that worked for me to be productive in the morning.
1. Take it easy
The only real tip that I can offer you about this is to get smaller, simpler, brainless tasks in during the morning. I usually try to schedule my simpler tasks for this time – emails, data collection, data entry, proofreading, etc. “Heavier” stuff like writing up reports, and finding literature was saved for the later part of the day. As for now, my mornings involve me getting in a solid workout, some meditation, planning my day and inevitably, STILL clearing my emails. I call this being productive about my overall wellbeing.
2. Get Your Own Sunshine
Another tip that I can offer you if you really need to work in the morning that has worked for me, is to get out and get some sunlight. Now, this doesn’t directly correlate with productivity, but it will help out with clearing the brain fog. It’s the whole sunshine, melatonin, and evolution thing. There’s actual science involved in this but I’m not going to bore you with it. The underlying concept is, nothing tells your body “HEY! IT’S TIME TO GET MOVING” like some good ol’ sunrays. Try to take the bus at some point of your commute instead of the train since trains are mostly underground or get off a stop early if that’s possible to walk for 10 minutes. 10 minutes is all you need to feel a little perkier. Plus, you’re getting some Vitamin D! Score!
3. Consistency is Key
As an evening person whose brain flat out refuses to work in the morning, something I noticed during my 9-5 was that consistency is key. This means I have to wake up at a reasonable time like 8am or 9am on weekends as well and not sleep in until 11am or noon like I want to. Even if I’m not doing anything, it’s mainly to accustom my brain to be awake during these hours so that I’m a little more awake during the weekdays. Since I’m not wired to be active at 9am and 10am, my brain finds it easy to switch off during these hours. So, waking up at noon on weekends meant my brain was a no go until afternoon on Mondays. And like I said in my previous article: unproductive Monday = unproductive week.
One final tip that I want to share before I close off is something you have probably seen and is so predictable. But unfortunately, it is so true. Please make sure you have a good breakfast and plenty of water in the morning. Nutrition is SO important, you guys. For one, I can’t work on an empty stomach. I also cannot work on a barely full or nutritionally devoid stomach. Hydration helps a lot with the sluggishness (again, science) as does a good breakfast (more science) – a good bowl of oatmeal or thosai and sambar usually get me going rather than things like curry puffs and muffins. The former helps me feel properly full, they can tide me over until lunch and they keep me happy. The latter kind of breakfast always just made me feel oily and blegh and thereby, sluggish.
And those are my tips! What do you do to be productive in the morning even though you’re not a morning person? Leave it in the comments below!
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