Being well-rested is a dream for most people these days.
Waking up in the morning, fresh from the stress and chaos of the previous day, and full of energy to take on the challenges that await, is a liberating feeling that many crave.
We see hundreds of podcasters, celebrities, gurus, authors, YouTubers, and professionals sharing their morning routines online, trying to inspire others to get their day started on a positive and productive note.
For some, it may work like a charm. However, for many others, the morning reset is a dreaded productivity sink that drags them back to square one every single day.
Don’t get me wrong. It is imperative to get a full 8 hours of sleep every night if you hope to live a long and healthy life.
But for those of us prone to procrastination, the moment we open our eyes in the morning, all the resolve and planning we built up the day prior vanishes into thin air.
Now, it is not uncommon for everyone to feel overwhelmed at the start of the day by the work that lies in front of them.
However, the productive ones among us generally sustain a base level of internal motivation from one day to the next. It pushes them through the initial hump required to hit the ground running during the most productive time of day.
When procrastinators wake up, our mind is a mess that gets immediately confronted with everything we have lined up. It is an intimidating feeling that immediately sours the prospect of working.
As many have said, procrastination is about the failure to emotionally self-regulate our feelings about our work. When we are stressed about confronting work head-on, our mind tries to flee and find solace in easier things such as inconsequential tasks or we just end up wasting time on social media or Netflix.
Sure, the easier tasks get done with no friction. But the tedious tasks that need intense focus are put off over and over again until the fear of not completing them or an entire day going by unproductively is greater than the fear of the tasks themselves.
So, every morning, procrastinators need to go through the emotional exertion of rebuilding their determination, asking themselves — Why do I do this? What happens if I don’t? Does this help me achieve what I want for myself? Who am I doing this for? — whatever your reason for whatever you do is.
This is why many of us waste the quiet, distraction-free time in the morning when the mind is raring to go and instead spend the entire day wallowing until the evening when the world settles back down into the same conditions.
This is especially applicable to freelancers and writers like us who are in control of our own time and thus need to create our own structure for the day.
A lot of us then end up being most productive at night, all of us night owls, when all the emotional turmoil of the day has been laid to rest and we have found our motivation.
Until we hit the bed and it is gone again the moment we wake up, leaving us forced to rebuild ourselves again.
I have tried many things to get over this.
Note taking. Daily affirmations. Scheduling and planning.
All these methods have only just started working for me over the last couple of years. It takes time to build yourself into the machine that can mechanically tick tasks off a checklist without delaying or second-guessing yourself.
If you are one of those productive machines, hats off to you. For the rest of you, I hope my story seems relatable and helps you find a solution to your own morning blues.