In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.
Ola! So I find myself yet again trying to improve my day-to-day living, and productive mornings, as emphasised by everyone and anyone who’s anyone, are still eluding me. Problems I have with mornings are waking up at the desired time and having a good energy level. Good enough to not only last me for the entire day but also good enough to even begin my day with.
I tried to be up and about at 5am but man, that didn’t happen. I kept going back to sleep despite my multiple alarms at 5.30am, 6am, and when it was my final alarm at 6.15am, that’s when I finally decided that I had to get up or I will end up late.
So where is the problem?
The root of it, of course. I didn’t have enough sleep to begin with! This is my difficulty when I end up working late: I have lesser time before my bedtime for my evening routines. I ended at 8pm yesterday and reached home at 9pm, which leaves me with only one hour before bedtime. One frigging hour. And I chose not to order takeout for dinner so I had to make dinner and then eat and then let my stomach settle, on top of washing up and all that jazz, I really had to push back my bedtime. As a result, vicious cycle is vicious, so of course I can’t get up early.
I feel like we’ve had this conversation many times so I’m not going too deep into it. I think what a lot of productivity gurus have left out is productivity for people who work shifts. I mean, seriously, all that productivity jazz is really for those who work 9-5 kinda jobs. So there, I have exposed a literature gap for anyone to exploit and turn rich from becoming a shift-worker productivity guru. Who wants to take it up? Please credit me. Lol.
Anyway, what went wrong aside, what went right took me by absolute surprise. I followed the tip of drinking a cup of plain water first in the morning, and I decided what they hey, I might as well chug down a supplement.
And lo! The wonders! Had the most satisfying shit of the week! Month maybe! Hahaha!
And hey, I even managed to have breakfast and I even took the early bus to work.
So yeah, the fact that I managed to do all that within 40 minutes (because I actually got out of bed at 6.20am) perhaps show that I am the time-pressure person. I am less productive and efficient when I’m given more time because my mind will always think that I have plenty of time whereas having less time to do more, makes me go at a faster rate. But if one were to simplify that concept, it is quite atypical of procrastinators. Always rushing and pressured. Ironic sometimes.
So how now brown cow?
Well, I will persevere and I aim to settle back into my 5am routine (once upon a time I was successful, okay, I even cooked and read Quran daily). Let’s give a deadline, eh, since I’m so good at working under pressure.
As much as I hate it, starting from tomorrow onwards, I will wake up at 5am everyday for seven days.
I said it here and you read it.
And Allah is Al-Ghafur, The Forgiver. – MM
Metropolitan Muslimah 