There isn’t enough time in the day to achieve my dreams.

That’s all.

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk!

I’m kidding. I have more to say than that.

It’s horribly cliché, but it’s true: there really isn’t enough time in the day to accomplish everything. If I want to squeeze in:

• going to the gym (I’m pretty sedentary and would easily become obese the way I eat)
• putting in time at work (major low point in my day, but this goes back to that thing I do enjoy, which I previously mentioned called “eating”)
• putting in time for my hobbies (taking pictures and writing these lovely blog posts no one reads)
• catching up on tv (Netflix and Hulu can take all my money)
• reading up on articles (also a form of eating– nourishment for the mind)
• cooking (another low point, but I’m not balling enough to have a personal chef. Yet.)
• sitting for a minute and just fucking thinking (there’s a beauty in being bored)
• maybe catch up with a friend (strong maybe)
• and getting a little actual sleep in the mix (sleep? I used to know her.)

I have to essentially call it a day at 2am so I can be up at a respectable 4:15am. All to wash, rinse, and repeat until I die of exhaustion.

I’m not crying. You are.

Pick up any article titled with something along the lines of “What Successful People Do In A Day/Your Lazy Ass Could Never!” and you’ll be inundated with a bunch of nonsense about how this CEO or President or some other arbitrary, but extremely high-paying “successful” person has their day carefully timed often beginning their day at about 2:27am when most of us are just laying down for the night. Due to this curation, they’re able to not only be financially better than you, they’re able to achieve more and somehow turn a 24 hour day into a 36 hour day all because they have given up sleep.

The main takeaway here, if I’m understanding correctly, is those three minute naps I give myself in the morning are why my life is in shambles and I don’t have time to do anything I actually enjoy anymore? Cool.

**7:30am alarm sounds**

“I’ll get out of bed in 3 minutes at 7:35. Just need a few minutes to help me make it to lunch.”

7:36am

“Damn! Missed it by a minute. 7:36 is too weird of a time to get up. I’ll get up at 7:40”

7:40am

“Hey! I did it! I should reward myself with 5 extra minutes”

7:45am

“Ok. I’m up. I wonder what’s on reddit.”

8:52am

“Fuck. Me.”

Like any shallow millennial fool, I’m driven by money, success, and achieving all of my dreams so I decided to give this whole early rising and actually getting out of bed thing a go about a year ago. After all, it would be nice to have some extra time in the day to, you know, live out those dreams I spend so much time in bed creating behind whatever part of the brain is behind my watchful eyes.

I turned off the tv, put the phone away, and closed my eyes at 11:30pm. After 20 minutes or so of neurotic driven thoughts (Why is bedtime the only time I start to wonder about former Triple Crown Winner, American Pharaoh? I don’t even follow horse racing. It was cool how our names are similar though…) I finally turned off my brain and fell asleep. I woke up the next morning to my alarm at 5:40am. Don’t ask why I picked that odd time.

“Yep. This is trash.” I thought to myself as I wondered about my mental wellbeing in deciding to take on such a ridiculous challenge. Should I check myself in to the psych ward now or this afternoon when I inevitably physically attack a coworker for sending one too many emails in a five minute span for my sleep deprived brain to process? The insanity plea in court will make a lot more sense if I go about it that way.

I was exhausted, it was pitch black, and everything in my body resisted the physical act of getting out of bed. My body went into shock, but I was committed. I headed to the gym, put in my time, came back, ate breakfast and got dressed for the day.

Work was even more of a struggle. I practically gave myself whiplash with hard neck snaps as I struggled to stay awake and focus on an email that took me roughly three hours to compose. Oddly, I felt extremely energetic once I got home around 6:30 that night. I had five hours for me time, which I excitedly wasted on watching tv. I didn’t feel as bad about wasting time because I had already been productive with my personal time. This was a reward.

In spite of an awful first day, I decided to give it another shot. I was in bed at 11:30pm and up at 5:40am.

Again.

Still trash.

This continued for a full three weeks until one day I woke up on my own accord about 5 mins before my alarm and I felt… energetic? Is that what it felt like to feel good in the morning?

I popped out of bed like Charlie’s grandfather when he invited him to the chocolate factory and decided to take advantage of my weird early morning crack head energy at the gym. Side note: shouldn’t all of Charlie’s grandparents’ legs have atrophied since they were sitting in the bed so long? What about bed sores? Why did he have so many grandparents? Why were they all sickly? That movie really left a lot of questions and in retrospect, I don’t like it.

As I walked into work, I wondered when my energy would tap out. I get bored easily and when I get bored, I sleep or eat. I assumed by 11am, I would find myself in the large stall in the ladies bathroom for a 15 minute power nap. Don’t judge me.

11am came and… still good. Nice. Maybe 1pm was when the little engine could no longer. 1pm hit and… still feeling energetic! The rest of the day passed and I walked out of the office still energized and ready to take on my personal projects when I got home. Your girl was on to something!

I woke up the next day fully expecting the previous day to have been a fluke and goshdarnitwouldn’tyouknowit, I was up and revved at 5:40! Was this… progress?

I was doing well until the weekend hit and I got my schedule all out of sorts. I went to bed later and stayed in bed longer, which left me feeling pretty lethargic the entire day. Also, the alcohol probably had something to do with it. I learned the hard way that staying on a sleeping schedule is very important. It’s a commitment that has to be made seven days, not five or three or six. All seven. Your brain doesn’t can’t distinguish any difference between Tuesday and Saturday. All it knows is it needs to keep you alive again even though you do everything in your power to push it to the limit.

There is something oddly calming about being up while the rest of NYC sleeps. Just me and the other early birds, the leftover drunks and that one homeless woman that takes a morning dump in front of my apartment all getting our day started by basking in the silence of the day before the chaos begins. It’s mind clearing to not feel rushed. I can take some “me” time to read, write, head to the gym, eat a solid breakfast and get my mental game right before I have to put on my work hat.

I love giving myself more time for my projects and passions. I’m not regulated to only having personal time in the few precious hours after work. It no longer feels like the focus of my day is work, which if we’re being completely honest, most of us work jobs that are not even remotely close to our passions. That’s why it’s called work I guess and not passions.

Getting up early is not easy and it does impede on my social life. It’s hard for me to be out past midnight and it took weeks to even physically and mentally adjust. Like anything, it’s a habit that had to be built.

I’ve considered staying up and getting up later as an alternative, but one thing I really enjoy about the extra time in the morning is not starting the day feeling rushed. It’s such a different mental game to leisurely wake up and think, “the next couple of hours are mine to do whatever” instead of frantically getting up and thinking, “fuck, I need to get to work.” My entire outlook on the day changed.

I’ll keep this early bird schedule for now or at least until I have the luxury of working my own hours and don’t have to commit to being at a place for money 7-8 hours a day, five days a week.

Those CEOs might be right about this one.