Early Starts, Not Late Nights

I have a horrible feeling this one is going to sound even more pretentious than normal.

For a long time, iv always tried to fit my creative work around the rest of my life by using up my free evenings and staying up later than everyone else. This works fine when I have something i'm excited to work on and iv always been able to make progress this way. The problem that iv noticed over the years tends to show up on those days and weeks when I don't have a solid goal in mind. After a long day at work or days out it can be hard to get home, pack down for the day and then search for inspiration. This is why after a couple of sessions going down the rabbit hole of productivity videos on YouTube, I decided to have a go at fitting my creative work into the morning rather than at night. This meant going to bed at a reasonable time and waking up before the rest of the house wakes up. I have tried this new schedule a couple of time this week with interesting results.

The first 2 nights I tried an early start wasn't too hard because it lined up with my partners early work shifts. We were able to get up together at 5:30am both mornings. It always seems a lot easier to pull yourself out of bed when you know others are expecting you to be somewhere so I appreciated having the human alarm clock. The next night was a lot more difficult relying on just my alarm and I didn't get up till around 6am. After that though I think my internal clock set in a little more as iv been naturally waking up around 5am so responding to the alarm has been easier.

In terms of productivity it seemed to be a very positive experience as long as I didn't allow my phone to keep me in bed. Once i'm up my normal routine is to go and let the dogs out, make a coffee and get to work in the studio. I was initially expecting that doing this whole process so early would be quite tough but I found it surprisingly comfortable. Sitting at my desk with a coffee, next to the light of my lamp and gentle breeze of the heater watching the world wake up really puts my head in the right space. And all of this without the general craziness of the rest of the family getting ready for the day. I spent a fair bit of time journaling to get in the right mindset but I also got to spend a lot of time making progress on things iv been putting off. I managed to write the lyrics for one of my demos iv been working on. A task I am notoriously good at putting off starting. I also managed to put myself out there more for project opportunities and oven picked up some potential interest. Maybe more in that in the future.

Overall, reorienting my schedule to allow more time for myself in the morning has proven to be much more beneficial to my time and motivation. I plan to stick with the early starts until it becomes a habit or stops being beneficial. Whichever allows me to keep going on my creative process.