I’ve always been a morning person, but in 2018, I really became a morning person when I started getting out of bed around 4:15am every day.

I started doing this because I took inventory of what I wanted to accomplish for the day, and I backed into what time I needed to get up. The beauty of waking up early is that you have time for you. No distractions, no deadlines, no one bugging you for anything. You can just focus on your priorities. And there is plenty of research to back up that this time of day is ideal for creativity and being productive. It just takes a bit of caffeine to get going.

It’s hard to wake up in the mornings super early unless you have a compelling reason to do so and a really great why. So an important first step is finding out what that reason is for you. I wake up early because I want to pray, exercise, and knock out some focused, distraction-free work every morning. I also need to shower, get ready to go to work, and occasionally eat breakfast.

Here’s how I backed into my wake up time, and how I recommend you do it. Figure out those activities you want to get done in the quiet hours of the morning. I carved out 30 minutes for prayer and spiritual reading, 1 ½ hours for focused work, 45 minutes for working out, an hour for showering, getting ready, and breakfast, and getting out the door for work, which is only a 10 minute drive from my home. That’s 3 hours and 45 minutes. So if I need to get to work by 8am, then I need to wake up by 4:15 am. It’s that simple.

There are plenty of resources on how to actually wake up earlier online, especially on YouTube. I’ve heard of the 5,4,3,2,1 method by Mel Robbins, and setting your alarm one minute earlier each day from Eric Thomas. The point is not which method actually works, but instead that you find something that works and more importantly, that you figure out why you want to wake up earlier, sketch out all the things you want to accomplish in the morning, then back into what time you need to wake up to make it happen.

That’s it for today. Thanks for listening. Tomorrow, we’re going to recap the week and I’m going to give you a little preview of next week’s theme.

My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the One Minute Retirement Tip.

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