The alarm went off at 5:25am and I hit snooze. I had ten minutes to decide to actually get out of bed or shut it off and continue sleeping. This new routine is difficult, well the first 5 minutes or so is difficult. After I am out of bed it is go time.
I don’t consider myself a morning person. Mainly because I don’t have to get up at any specific time to get to work. Over the last couple of weeks I have decided to try something new by waking up before the rest of the family and start work.
My goal is to get an hour to an hour and a half of uninterrupted work done before anyone else in the house is awake. So far I am amazed by just how much I can get done at such an early hour. I am more focused and much more motivated to complete tasks and my creativity is much higher during this time.
What My Typical Day Looked Like
Prior to making this sleep-altering change I would work in spurts. I had no real schedule and I seemed to pick the most inopportune times to “go get some work done”. For those of you who work from home, you know what I am talking about.
Here is what that would typically look like (when the kids are out of school and my wife is off of work).
6:50am – Our youngest son Liam comes in to our room and wakes us up
6:52am – I pick up my iPhone and download my email, deleting all the spam and marking the others as unread. I respond to a couple if I can
7:10am – We head downstairs for breakfast
7:50am – Our oldest son Jacob wakes up so my wife makes him breakfast
8:00am – I bring Liam upstairs to get dressed and brush his teeth
8:35am – Jacob is dressed and ready to get his day started
8:45am – Jacob asks me to draw with him
9:00am – I stop to check my email on my iPhone while I am drawing with Jacob
9:03am – I get an “important email” that must be tended to immediately
9:04am – I tell him I need to “go get some work done” and head down to the office. The important email takes 60 seconds to respond to but then I start working on other tasks. Since I have no real direction to my work I bounce between projects. This includes bouncing between creative type work like writing and task oriented work like site updates and responding to trouble tickets.
9:10am – My youngest son Liam runs into my office. “Daddy lets play”. I tell him “you know not to bother Daddy while he is working at his desk”.
9:11am – I yell up to Heather “Heather, please remind the kids not to bother me while I am getting work done” she yells back “I need to take a shower though”
9:12am – Back to work. I am on a roll now. I have responded to 5 emails and updated basecamp with some new site update requests for my team. Time to get creative again.
9:25am – I open up iBooks Author to get back to writing my eBook. I need to get my 500 words in so I can make some progress
9:32am – The office door slides open. “Daddy can we have a snack?” says Jacob with his little brother Liam. “Yes” I respond “give me 5 minutes”
9:40am – I head to the kitchen to get them a snack
10:00am – My wife comes downstairs. “Are you ready to go? I told Tammy we would meet her at the museum with the kids”. I think for a second about how I could stay home and get some work done. Just then Jacob says “Dad, are you coming? Please, please, please!”. I am self-employed so of course I want to go. “Yes” I say.
As the day continues I check my email on my iPhone and think of everything I am going to accomplish during Liam’s nap time later. I respond to some and select others as unread to get back to later. Sometime during lunch I usually say something like “when we get home I have some voicemails to respond to”. That is my way of letting Heather know I have work to do this afternoon.
2:15pm – Heather brings Liam upstairs to put him down for a nap. Hopefully he will sleep. He typically only gets one or two naps a week now that he is almost 4
2:20pm – Jacob asks if he can play on the computer so I get him setup on Kizi.com or HoodaMath.com
2:21pm-3:30pm – I am a machine. I finish writing my goal of 500 words. I return voicemails, I respond to trouble tickets and add new requests to basecamp. I check analytics and adsense. I am on fire
3:31pm – Liam is up
3:50pm – Heather calls downstairs. “I just got called in. One of the babies at the orphan home needs to be checked on. Can you watch the kids?” Of course. That is why we are here.
4:00pm – Me, Jacob and Liam head outside to play soccer…
After dinner and bath routines for the kids my wife and I usually head to bed to watch a movie or read. Sometimes I am motivated to “get some work done” and I sit in bed with the laptop. Usually by this time of the day though I am really sloppy and can’t keep on one task so I rotate between all my websites tracking and bounce between my favorite blogs and news sites. I am not good at working at night, my brain is mush. Time to go to bed…
Something Has Got to Give
Every two of three months I have a conversation with my wife about how I need to have boundaries with my work so I can be more productive. We talk about how the kids need to learn to stay out of my office and sometimes I need to stay home while she takes the kids to do fun activities.
It is all with good intentions but in the end it is me who is the cause of all the issues. Let’s face it, I like sleep. I love being able to drop everything and go with my wife and kids to do fun stuff. And when the kids are in school who doesn’t want to go see a movie with their wife in the middle of the day?
From the kids perspective, how can I expect them to maintain boundaries with my work when I don’t do the same when I play with them? Sometimes when they come into my office I am very accommodating, other times I get angry because they interrupt me.
When we are out doing fun activities I am constantly checking my email and sometimes leave to return calls. My mind is on my work even when we are out as a family. This is not their problem, it is a problem with ME!
When Can I Work Uninterrupted?
So if I am not a “morning person” then why am I up at 5:25am working? Simple. What I had done for years simply wasn’t working.
My new routine is not easy since I really don’t like getting up early. The benefit however is that I get over an hour of ultra-productive work time.
I wake up, start a pot of coffee and grab a bowl of cereal or oatmeal and head to the office. My day now begins with clearing out emails and trouble tickets, updating banking and then I dive into writing.
By the time the kids wake up I am ready to sit down with the family for breakfast with a clear mind an a huge sense of accomplishment.
Throughout the day I find myself thinking less about work and worrying about what I need to get done later. I am not preoccupied with what I should be or could be doing. I already got more done in the morning power hour than I would normally with constant distractions.
When I take the time to play with my kids I find I am not checking my phone. Getting up early only hurts for a few minutes as I force myself to get up. Once I am up though I am excited to get to work! My passion for my business is renewed and I am ready to take on the day.
Now I am able to enjoy my time with the family with a clear head. This is an obvious benefit for the family and for my stress level.
Now I group my time throughout the day to 15-30 minute spurts when I concentrate on task oriented work like returning emails, trouble tickets and making calls. I save the creative sessions for the morning or times when I have the house to myself or when I know the kids won’t be tempted to interrupt me. If they do then I blame myself for picking a bad time to sit down and “get some work done”.
The New Routine May Need Modification
Like all new routines there is a steep curve at first. I am still in the honeymoon phase and I am still feeling like I am on fire. Similar to a new exercise regimen I may get burnt out too quickly or a minor change in the schedule may knock me off-balance.
The hard part will be keeping up the schedule by getting up earlier when Jacob starts school, or trying to get into the groove later in the morning while both boys are at school. At this point I feel like getting up earlier could be a good option but time will tell.
School starts August 17th. I plan on updating this post in late August to let you know how it works out.
How Do You Balance Family and Work?
Now I’d like to get some comments rolling! What works for you? Do you set hard hours and lock yourself into your office and hack away? Do you work in spurts? Or do you blow off work as much as you can and then cram when you have to?