A few days back, Lifehacker ran a post on the top ten ways to upgrade your morning routine. All of the suggestions in the list are good ones (except that thing about cutting out the caffeine; what on earth could they be thinking?), but I want to call attention in particular to numbers 10, 6, and 1; together they add up to this post, which I really did have in the works well before Lifehacker scooped me.
As their suggestions run, you might make the most of your mornings if you:
10. Save the Morning for Thinking;
6. Choose Your Most Important Task Over Email; and
1. Know Your Peak Performance Times.
What all of this adds up to for me is using the first half-hour of the morning wisely, as it sets the tone for my day.
This is a lesson that I’ve had to re-learn repeatedly. I’ll find myself, about mid-semester, having a hard time squeezing any writing into my schedule, and it will only slowly dawn on me that the situation is being worsened, if not created, by the fact that I’m starting my day in crisis-management mode, which is a mode I can never get out of once it’s set in.
On the other hand, if I start my day with thirty minutes of writing, I’m far more likely to be able to return to the project in some random free block of time later in the day.
So I discipline myself: I climb out of bed, brush my teeth, feed the cats, make the coffee, and then sit down at the computer — and do not open my email. Instead, I open whatever document I’m currently writing in and set a timer for thirty minutes. And I spend that thirty minutes focusing exclusively on that document.
Because whatever new crisis my email is going to bring me that morning isn’t going to get any worse in the next thirty minutes, but getting my focus back once I’ve allowed the crisis into my morning simply will not work.
Being an email/Twitter/blog junkie, I’m not going to pretend that this kind of discipline comes easily. It’s all too easy for the routine to slip, and for me to find myself reaching for the iPhone and checking my email before I even roll out of bed. But I know that my peak writing time is first thing in the morning, that I do my best work before the world and all its troubles have intruded into my thinking, and that, for the first half-hour of the morning, writing is far and away my most important task. The more often I can protect that block of time, the better off I am.
How about you? What tricks have you found for structuring your day in order to protect your writing, reading, or thinking time?
[Image by Flickr user tricky™; / Creative Commons licensed]
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14 Responses to The First Half-Hour of the Morning
elsie - May 18, 2010 at 4:23 pm
This past semester I taught an 8 am class, and I hated it. I hated primarily because I lost that first half-hour to a hurried breakfast and photocopying.
smeyers - May 18, 2010 at 4:47 pm
In contrast, I’ve gotten my best writing done when I’ve taught an 8 am class. I’d get to the classroom with my laptop between 7 and 7:15 and sit and work there. Students didn’t arrive until close to 8 and it was easier there for me to avoid the phone, e-mail, and the internet.
grward - May 18, 2010 at 5:29 pm
Good ideas, but they only apply if you don’t have children. One more example of how (successful) academic life and responsible family life are incompatible.
kfitz - May 18, 2010 at 5:57 pm
Point taken, grward, unless you manage to make that first half-hour of the morning happen before the kids wake up. But the Lifehacker point about figuring out your most productive time still stands. For me, it’s the crack of dawn, before everything else takes over; for someone else, it might be the first half-hour after the kids are in bed, or the last half-hour before climbing in oneself. YMMV, in other words.
22228715 - May 18, 2010 at 6:04 pm
I don’t have kids, but I’m an adjunct and the job that pays the bills is administrative. It includes student crisis response. And although usually things can wait a little longer first thing in the morning, it is not at all unheard of for something to get much, much worse when waiting thirty minutes.But thanks for the tip… I will try it…
pdwolf - May 18, 2010 at 6:24 pm
grward: I know plenty of Moms who are VERY productive in the half-hour or hour before the kids get up. I wouldn’t dismiss the suggestion as being not applicable to people with kids (just as it won’t work for everyone without kids).
creamcity - May 18, 2010 at 6:53 pm
Before doing a thing, you early birds, remember to put this at the top of your to-do list: Thank us night people. After all, you get up early every morning to find the world still spinning, don’t you? I suppose you think that was inevitable? Ha. The night shift makes it all possible!
npra4816 - May 18, 2010 at 7:47 pm
These ideas can be applied to your first 30 minutes in the office — not just your first half hour awake.
ellis - May 19, 2010 at 10:16 am
[Comment editorially removed for being off-topic.]
lizgibbons - May 19, 2010 at 1:14 pm
That 30 minutes can be carved out at ANY point in the day, it just needs to have priority: put it in the daily calendar just as if it were an appointment with the ______ (fill in the blank: dept. chair, dean, president, dentist, whatever). Like the jar of large stones metaphor, we allow our time to be taken with minutae (read: chickenpoop) rather than important stuff.
saintmaur - May 19, 2010 at 3:34 pm
I make it a point to meditate first thing (after coffee) every morning; although the point is not to solve academic problems, I find that I consistently get more ideas about how to solve teaching and writing problems during this ‘unoccupied’ period than at any other.
kajohnson - May 20, 2010 at 12:46 pm
This is helpful! At my institution (Federal and State melded pre-school setting), my first hour and a half is paperwork and collaboration. The collaboration over a cup of coffee is well spent, but time behind the computer is difficult in the morning. I sometimes read this newsletter and ASCD (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.) However, I just applied for a grant that will neccessitate writing. So, I am going to use this advice with the coffee and the pastoral view at our home/farm. However, what do I do about wanting to read the news here?
msmale - May 21, 2010 at 6:21 pm
To echo lizgibbons, I’ve found that I can often use the first 30-60 min of my time in the office this way if I can successfully tamp down my email urge. I’m a parent and for me this is a good compromise, since my first thing in the morning is occupied w/getting everyone fed, dressed + out the door.
urbananchorite - May 24, 2010 at 10:46 am
Re night people, I get “suddenly smarter” after 9:00 pm. So get everyone to bed including spouse and then sneak downstairs with dog for 1-3 hours of writing,