subject: How to Develop Productivity Enhancing Habits [print this page] How to Develop Productivity Enhancing Habits
I still remember this old proverb that: "early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise" - and women too! I didn't realize then it was a well known proverb that was associated with Benjamin Franklin back in the 1700s and how appropriate these wise saying was even till now.
From my personal experience, the above saying did not make any difference in my life because I so cherished my sleep and always believed that 8 hours sleep every night were just the minimum I required to. As I carried on with my education and its ups and down resulting from my habitual lateness due to rising late, I took solace in one of the characters in a book I was studying during that time; a person called Abel Whittle in the classic novel by Thomas Hardy known as "The Mayor of Casterbridge." Enough said!
1. Habit or Natural predisposition
People claim they perform better late at night and therefore can't do mornings while most successful people I have read about appear to have accomplished a substantial amount of work before people like me got out of bed. I used to think it was hereditary after I began to observe this habit in my daughter who was always late for work, ill-tempered in the mornings and had several damaged alarm clocks that were hurled across the room. I challenged myself to break this habit but only in the last 2 years after I noticed how much I could accomplish in my life by getting up earlier than normal. A habit is behavior that's repeated frequently until it becomes automatic. So my choice to stay in bed for at least 8 hours became a habit I justified.
2. Relationship between rising early and success
If you have followed the routines of very prosperous entrepreneurs you would promptly see that there's a correlation between waking up early and their effectiveness/accomplishment. If you reduced, say, eight hour sleep by 1 hour every night, there would have been a gain of 9 forty-hour weeks or 15 days in one year. In my case, I decreased the duration I slept to 6.5 hours and have gained 22 days every year though the first 3 months were difficult. I work from home and so when I hear footsteps of passers-by going to work, I have done a lot from my to-do-list. It's not a coincidence that extremely successful individuals achieve so much in a single week than many individuals do in a year.
3. Beliefs
I was of the mistaken belief that the body require a lot sleep to become more energetic. Admittedly, sleep is restorative and is the fountain of stamina however in truth, the extra I slept the extra tired I got. However, since I started to get up early and start my day with pure drink and reduced caffeine, I am full of vitality and in excellent mood. Since the law of attraction is now well known and used to enrich our lives, several ideas and suggestions are now offered regarding how to make this prosperity materialize. Those that have attracted wealth and well-being didn't do so from the comfort of their bed half way through the morning. They rose early, meditated and set about putting into action their business ideas thus transforming their dream into reality through determination and productivity.
4. Tips on how to rise early and make it stick
I am relatively new to this routine in that I've mainly been doing it for 2 years and so I'm going to share what I found effective:
I stopped drinking coffee over fifteen years ago and would strongly recommend cutting down.
If you depend on being wakened by an alarm, try to place it a bit away from away from your bed so that you would have to get up to stop the alarm.
Rise up immediately and avoid going back to bed. Belief me, it doesn't work.
Begin with small steps; once you decide the best time you wish to start your morning, do it gradually half-hour in the first week, etc. Remember what you will gain by making constructive use of these 30 minutes each day.
Appreciate this experience otherwise it becomes a chore and there'll be no motivation to persevere. It's also great to enjoy the tranquility and creativity of the dawn, it is spectacular.
