Friday morning, nothing better than waking up on your own and then hearing he alarm go off right after that. Waking up refreshed, and ready to tackle the day, there is no better feeling than that (if you compare it to the: ‘I don’t want to get out of my bed and snooze, snooze alarm feeling).
Last night I read an article about how to become more creative and use your mornings for that purpose. I decided to give it a try, so I organized myself in order to try it out this morning.
The article talked about how we depend so much on our phones, and because most of us use them as our alarm clocks, we keep them right next to our beds. This makes the morning process to end up looking like this: “Alarm goes off… oh noooo… snooze. Alarm goes off… oh noooo… you get the idea.”
Once we have that phone in our hands, then the external input starts coming in: Facebook feeds, Instagram, the news, you probably have something else that you check right away each morning. We haven’t stepped out of the bed and we are already caught in someone else’s drama. Be it good or bad drama.
Getting back to the morning ritual, I left my phone outside my bedroom (I can hear the uproar, while you are reading this) and I went to bed.
I woke up this morning, 20 minutes before my alarm went off and it felt weird not to reach out for the phone. It also felt like I wasn’t going to starting my own time. I got out of bed and went to make my first cup of coffee. When I came back, I sat on my bed and listened to the rain and the thunder. It was very relaxing. Then I grabbed a notebook that I left on top of my night stand and started writing.
The outcome of the experiment this morning: 7 pages of thoughts and ideas, plus this post. I also feel more energized to go over today’s tasks. Hey, it is Friday after all!!!
I make a deliberate effort to not fiddle with my phone when I’m out to dinner with someone. I’ve had the other party get uncomfortable for me when I wouldn’t check messages that came in while I was with them.
I think that is a great practice. It definitely makes a big difference to have a conversation with someone that is listening to you, instead of hearing what you are saying.