Starting ahead

I noticed something interesting in the way I approach the morning. If I’m up by around 5:30, I feel calm and ahead of the day. But, if I’m up around 6, I already feel behind and somewhat rushed.

I’ve been sensing this pattern of late but can definitely attest to it as of this morning. There’s a tipping point around the 5:30 mark that has a noticeable effect on my morning. And, it feels like a worthy enough tipping point to design around it, i.e., to make sure my alarms go off no later than 5:30. This, in turn, means being in bed by 9:30.

I find it fascinating to learn these little things about yourself.

This is also why I believe blanket productivity advice is useless. It is much better to explore productivity from a more overarching point of view – start from exploring what “the good life” means to you, understand what you value, what your ideal days would be like, how you’d like to work – and then work backwards to create an approach towards productivity. Once you have that baseline, it will still require a continuous chain of iterations as you reflect and learn more about yourself.

But, the fact remains that there is no productivity without a goal and there is no way you can approach the “how” behind productivity without understanding the psychology behind it. And, productivity goals and your mind’s psychology are uniquely yours. It helps to own it.