At the turn of the year, as an experiment, I considered getting up extremely early in the morning for a few weeks. This has been floating around in my head for a few months now and as of the publication of this article I’m in the process of implementing it.
The idea basically developed as a result of training in the morning . I’ve been doing morning exercise for over a year now and the advantages have tempted me to stay on the ball. Now I want to go one better and get up at four o’clock in the future, which is extremely early in the morning.
“The guy is crazy”, you might think now. There is probably something to it too. After all, who gets up voluntarily at such a time? In this article I want to explain to you what I plan to do and what I hope to achieve.
The 4 o’clock experiment – what exactly I’m going to do
The name says it all, I think quite well. I plan to get up at 4 a.m. during the week in the coming weeks. The idea is currently a bit scary for me, because getting up early in the morning has never been one of my favorite activities.
Currently I get up on weekdays at around 05: 30-06: 00 in order to go straight to training after getting up and then to work without breakfast. Incidentally, I only got used to that a year ago. After work, I come home, eat and relax a little before I devote myself to my part-time activities, such as Fitvolution and FiBloKo and / or social activities.
So in the future I want to try out what it’s like to get up an hour and a half to two hours earlier. I want to use this additional time in the morning to focus on working on my secondary business. Say, I will after my morning ritual Have a bite to eat and then occupy myself with three 25-minute time boxes on previously defined topics relating to this blog and the FiBloKo event. I use the Pomodoro technique, which I describe in my article about self-motivation .
Getting up extremely early in the morning – reasons / arguments for my experiment
Now you’re probably wondering why on earth I want to do this to myself. I admit that I do not only see advantages in this further change in my daily rhythm. However, I believe there are a number of potential benefits to starting my day this way in the future. I would like to briefly explain which these are below.
What you start the day with determines the direction of your whole day. In the early morning you set the course for the whole day. I just want to set this course as best as possible.
Some extremely successful people get up very early
I like to orient myself to the habits of successful people. There are numerous successful entrepreneurs who get up extremely early. Some study results also suggest that early risers are statistically the more successful people.
This is also a central learning that I have drawn from Tools of the Titans by Tim Ferris *.
First Things First – do what is most important to you first
Since reading the book The one thing *, I’ve still had things on my to-do list every day. However, one thing has absolute priority here. No matter how good or bad a day has gone, if I tick this one point I know that I achieved / did something that was important to me that day.
Now imagine how you did this one thing early in the morning, before anything else, or at least started it. The sun hasn’t even risen yet, but you’ve already got your first victory. I can do this and my training now before I leave for work in the morning.
After work, I am currently often exhausted and no longer very motivated. Of course there are solutions for this, like the ones I have in my articles ” How do I motivate myself? ” or ” How do you motivate yourself to exercise after work ” introduce. But the idea of not having to bring up this motivation on difficult days and just being able to relax in the evening is very appealing.
No distractions from work
Working so early in the morning has an extremely big advantage: almost nobody else does that. Accordingly, nothing and nobody distracts you from your work.
So you can fully concentrate on one thing without being disturbed in between. Nobody complains if you start your playlist for 25 minutes and simply work through a task and are not approachable at all. Sometimes I almost go into a work trance, super focused.
Early in the morning, with the right ones Beats on the ears don’t distract me. Then I’ll be like a horse with blinkers!
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More focus on the essentials
You may now think the opposite is the case, but I am convinced that by getting up extra early, you are automatically much more focused on the essentials and that you are working precisely on it. You know for sure, that focus is your superpower . So if you have the opportunity to make better use of them, you should do so.
There is a simple reason why you are more easily focused in this early morning scenario in my opinion: You got up earlier to achieve something with it. If you waste your time now, you have tortured yourself out of bed for nothing. Instead, you take the drive of your morning ritual with you and do what you really want to do.
Awake longer before training
I hope to get some benefits from getting up earlier, not only for my work on my secondary business and my other goals, but also for my training.
The optimal training time can be discussed for a long time. However, the fact is that in addition to its advantages, morning training also has some disadvantages. If you have been awake for a while before training, then some of these disadvantages can be alleviated a little.
If you have been awake a little longer before training, your muscles are (at least in theory) a bit more efficient. For me it is definitely the case that I can move more weight in the evening than in the morning. If you want to build muscle mass , the weight you move also plays a decisive role.
In addition, the risk of injury decreases if you give yourself, your brain and your whole body some time before training to really wake up. Especially with muscle building training with heavy weights, the risk of injury should not be underestimated.
Getting up extremely early in the morning – what speaks against it
Despite all the advantages, I want to make it clear that getting up so early in the morning and structuring your day in this way can potentially have some disadvantages. You shouldn’t ignore these if you want to try that too. As I said, this is an experiment and I don’t yet know exactly how well I will get along with it.
For example, there are some studies that suggest that it is not sensible or healthy (for the psyche) to get up this early on a regular basis. I am always up before the sun comes up. For most of the year, I even finish training until it finally gets light. This fact can have a negative effect on some people.
Then there is research on the so-called chronotypes, which says that everyone has a biological predisposition which sleep times are right for them. I have a strong assumption that I can be assigned to the owls. These are actually the late risers. So if I work against my internal clock, will I become less productive, unhealthy or unhappy overall? Does this biological predisposition really exist and how stable is it actually? Definitely things to keep in mind and keep an eye on.
Lark or owl – what are you ?
A very important point is social interaction. If I get up at 4 a.m., I have to go to bed strictly between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. I need my six hours of sleep if I sleep soundly, want to be relaxed and therefore productive. That doesn’t leave me much time to spend time with friends in the evening during the week. On the other hand, I have rarely been out for longer than 10 p.m. during the week. I will also sleep longer at the weekend so as not to be disqualified for evening activities together.
My conclusion on the extremely early waking up experiment
As you can see, there are some things that speak in favor of getting up extremely early at least once. However, the possible disadvantages should be considered and observed. I’m curious to see how it will develop for me. I will probably write another article about my experience in a few months.
As I said, this is an experiment and I can certainly imagine changing my daily routine again fundamentally. However, I believe that this measure can help me to achieve my goals even faster and more effectively.
Have you tried something like this before? How are your experiences? Could you imagine trying that out? Feel free to write me a comment.
If you are interested, you can also follow me on my Instagram channel . There I will document everything a little, explain it again and answer questions.
Kind regards
