Getting Started #1 (Mornings)…

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"Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there."  --  Will Rogers

Getting up in the morning can be one of my most difficult lifetime challenges. Some mornings, even though I can hear the birds chirping outside my sunny bedroom window, elevating myself up from my deep morning's sleep can seem an impossible and unwelcome chore. I used to joke that I'm not fully awake until 10 o'clock in the morning, but as I get a little older, it becomes that much less of a joke.

Speaking of the office, by the time I get there and face the piles of paper on my desk, I'm not so happy to be awake. Is it any wonder that the first thing I do is drop my briefcase and headed across the street for a strong cup of coffee?

Of course, similar pattern emerges from me when I start on projects. I suppose you can begin to see the pattern yourself: the only thing I don't have trouble getting started is my car and that's because it's a Honda. In fact it took me three tries to start this article and it's now Saturday afternoon.

Am I alone? I don't think so.

There's two parts to getting started, preparation and execution. Let's start with getting up in the morning. The best way to get up in the morning is to get a good night's sleep, and the best way to get a good night's sleep is to be prepared for one.

Getting To Sleep at Night

Relax.  The best thing you can do for yourself to prepare for a good sleep is to be relaxed. For me that means reading a good book, for you that could be a hot bath, or even a bowl of cereal with warm milk.

Set a regular bedtime. I know it sounds like something you tell your children, but the body is a creature of habit. Get your body accustomed to going to sleep at a particular time of the evening and it will become easier and easier to sleep at that time.

Don't wait until you're drowsing on the sofa. That drowsing is exactly what you want to drift you into a good night’s sleep. If you have to interrupt it by getting up off the sofa, getting undressed and getting into bed, you've already interrupted your sleep.

This sounds silly, but keep an orderly bed. Tangled sheets and blankets hang you up at night and make you toss and turn more than you normally would. Take just a moment before you go to sleep to straighten out your covers and make sure you're comfortable.

Use music or white noise. Many people have trouble turning off their brain when they lay on the pillow at night. Their thinking continues to run a mile a minute, or they listen to every sound they hear and project a potential disaster. Gentle music of any genre in the background, or even a white noise machine with the sound of the ocean or birds chirping quietly, can distract your mind and help you focus on the nothingness that will bring you sleep.

Get a good pillow. You'd be surprised how fast a pillow wears out and ceases to provide the proper support. If you’ve had your pillow more than three or four years, it's time to replace it. If it's one of those expensive down-filled pillows, consider taking it to a dry cleaner to have it cleaned and fluffed and possibly even refilled.

Remember that the pillow is more than just a block to lay your head on. It needs to provide the proper support for your head and neck so that you can breathe properly while you sleep, and minimize strain on the back and shoulder muscles.

Getting Up in the Morning

Now that we've mastered preparing and getting a good night of sleep, I thought about getting up in the morning. This is the real problem for me. When I was young, it was common for me to sleep through three alarm clocks and still be late for school. I know now it wasn't because I didn't hear the alarm clocks, it was because I wasn't ready to face the day. Sometimes the reason that you can't get up in the morning is because you don't want to, and sometimes the reason is because you didn't get enough sleep and you can't wake up. It's important to know which is which and which is happening to you.

Here’s what worked for me for both reasons.

Don't use the sleep button. Don't let your body think that each deadline gives you more time. Reconcile both your body and your mind to getting up without the extra 10 minutes or 15 minutes or 30 minutes that you steal with the sleep button. Think about it, if you can regularly give yourself an extra 15 or 30 minutes, then set your alarm appropriately and get up when it rings. Steve Pavlina suggests that you use a Pavlovian training method of repetition to a custom yourself to getting up upon hearing the alarm. However you get there, fight that hesitation to fall back into sleep.

Stretch. Before you even throw the covers back, stretch out take a deep breath open your eyes and look around your room. Give your body a chance to become accustomed to being awake.

Shower immediately. Don't slump around making your coffee, picking what you're going to wear for the day. Hit the shower right away. It's much harder to fall back asleep if you're showered and shaved.

Don't think about the day ahead of you. There's plenty of time for that. Give yourself at least an hour in the morning of not thinking about the day that's coming up. Instead, listen to the sounds of the morning or music, appreciate the weather, say hello to your fish. Anything but stressing yourself out by anticipating the events of the day.  Don’t listen to the news.  You can hear that on the way to work.  This time is for easing into the day.

These are my strategies for getting a good sleep and getting out of a good sleep the next day for a good start.

Having conquered that, I next set out to master the art of facing my desk in the morning. I'll write more about that in the near future.

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