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How waking up at 4:30AM helps me

Since the start of 2020, I decided to challenge myself to waking up at 4:30 AM for 1 week after watching an inspiring video from Jocko Willink.

I thought it was kind of crazy to be doing it but I thought I might as well give it a shot.

Little did I know, it was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made which has still stuck with me till this day.

The biggest benefit to waking up early is that it gives me about 3 hours of uninterrupted time before work everyday. At the end of the week, I usually have 10-15 hours of deep work dedicated to myself. (For those of you who haven’t read Deep Work by Cal Newport, I highly recommend it!)

With that extra time every week for the last 1.5 years, I’ve been able to accomplish so much more:

1) Started to read more

Prior to this, I could never really find the time to read books.

With the extra hours I have to myself every day, I usually give myself at least 10-30 minutes of that time to reading.

With that said, I usually get about 1-2 chapters in a day.

I went from reading 0 books to 20-30 books a year. (2~ books a month)

2) Picked up meditation

It also allowed me to dedicate a bit of time (10 minutes) to practice mindfulness through meditation.

I’ve found this really helps to manage my mood especially when my day job gets super stressful.

3) Learned to code

The majority of my time was spent teaching myself how to code.

Prior to this, I've always had aspirations to create something that is my own. I knew teaching myself how to code was the way to do it but I was simply too drained at the end of the day to dedicate brain power to it.

With the extra time and fresh mind in the morning, I was able to breeze through YouTube and Udemy courses without dozing off or getting bored.

I went from knowing 0 about computer science to publishing an android app on the google play store (shameless self plug :'D)

4) I used to hate Mondays

Getting the Sunday scaries was a real thing for me before.

Now, I never get them because I love waking up knowing I get to work on things that are important to me first.

I know it's not for everyone

I also know waking up early isn't 💯 for everyone but if you feel like it might help you, I hope I can be that push to give it a shot 😁

If didn't make the decision to start this, I'm sure I would have never done these things.

What about you guys??

I'd love to hear your experiences.

  1. 1

    If you're waking up every day so early, I am curious when you are going to bed?

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