The time just before dawn contains the most energy of all hours of the day. This has helped me become an early riser and an early doer… When I wake to see that it’s light out already, I feel the world has started without me. – Terri Guillemets
‘The early bird catches the worm’ is a popular idiom, and for good reason. It turns out that meeting the early morning hours helps entrepreneurs get a jump start to their day, ensuring greater productivity and success.
In a recent Entrepreneur.com article, author Lisa Evans shares three benefits early risers enjoy:
1. Less distraction. It’s important that you attend to personal priorities like research, exercise, and even meditation. Unfortunately, as the day wears on, you’ll find it more difficult to attend to those things as professional tasks stack up. Waking up early enables you to bypass distraction and accomplish things that will empower and invigorate you before tackling the workday.
2. More willpower. Laura Vanderkam, author of What The Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast, suggests, “Willpower is like a muscle [that] becomes fatigued with overuse.” The more difficulty you encounter—frustrated clients, emergency tasks, traffic—the more quickly you’ll exhaust that supply of willpower. If you don’t get up early in the morning, that can happen before the end of your workday. However, if you tackle some of the most pressing tasks early in the day, when your willpower isn’t being spread thin, you’re more likely to accomplish more.
3. Ability to set a positive tone. Evans says, “If you’ve ever slept in past your alarm clock or forgotten your kids’ lunches on the counter, you know that starting off the day with a failure can bring down your mood and affect your productivity at work.” When you get up early, you can avoid the hectic rush that can get you started on the wrong foot. A slower, more deliberate pace can set just the right tone for your day.
So what do you do with that extra time? While Evans provides her own suggestions, Universal ran an article a number of years ago on Time-Saving Techniques, the majority of which could take place at the beginning of every workday. This enables you to start your day off right, paving the way to success.
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Resource
Evans, Lisa. “The Power of Mornings: Why Successful Entrepreneurs Get up Early.” 12 June 2013 Entrepreneur.com