I’ve written about Discovering Work Life Balance in the past, but when I came across Jim Citrin’s article titled Tapping the Power of Your Morning Routine I realized that I left out an important part of the dynamics of work life balance for me.
Some people are early birds; some people are night owls. I’ve always been an early bird. In Citrin’s article, he talks some of the common characterists of key CEOs that he admires. As a morning person, it was fascinating to see what people do when they get up.
I wake up, get out of bed, drag a comb across my head. Skip that last part about the comb. I try to get up at 5am on Monday to Thursday, regardless of where I am (every now and them I get hosed on travel and sleep in – if I get less than six hours of sleep I have a rough day.) The next sequence is very predictable.
- Brush teeth
- Make coffee
- Feed dog (if home)
- Do email
- Read “News” folder in Firefox (all the daily news I read)
- Read all RSS feeds
- Write blog post(s)
I give myself until 7am for this. I then run from 7am until “whenever my run is over” (I’m in maintenance mode right now so my workouts last an hour – in the summer when I gear up for my next marathon it will be longer.) Shower. Eat breakfast. “Start the rest of the day” (usually before 9am.)
Occasionally I have to do a phone call before 9am – I optimize around this. I’ve stopped doing breakfast meetings – I want the first four hours of my day to myself.
It has taken me a while to figure out this rhythm. While my morning routine might not work for you, I’ve found the notion of a morning routine to be a critical part of my work life balance. Think about your morning – tomorrow.