Morning Hours are Open Hours

I’ve gone back - these past couple weeks - to waking up with an hour or two to myself before work. I love how I’ve been feeling, but it shouldn’t be a surprise: I’m a morning person.

I used to do this back when I had an actual commute to work (riding the train or walking or biking): wake up a couple hours before I was expected at work, just so I could exercise at a gym and then commute. I would listen to podcasts and bump around/into other people and it grounded me in the world.

Now that I don’t commute and built a home gym, I had fallen into a mindset of “maximize sleep time”: wake up with a bit of time before work, but prioritize sleeping longer over waking up with extra time because who wants to be tired later in the day if you can avoid it?

And that was fine for a while. Especially after late nights.

But a couple weeks ago I remembered loving the early morning. And I realized I hadn’t been writing/reflecting as much as I would like. If I try to do those reflective/calm activities in the evening, I’m too easily distracted (by ideas from earlier in the day, by my loved ones around me, by my physical energy).

So I went back to an early alarm and have been devoting the time to minding myself. I try to avoid reading anyone else’s ideas and instead focus on thinking/writing my own clean slate during this time. It’s kind of like morning pages, except I don’t always write. Sometimes I’ll meditate, or take a walk outside, or build something. It’s glorious.

This is me committing to this practice, for myself.