I'll Never Be A Morning Person, But…

I am pretty sure I'll never be a morning person (see my post The Magical Life Of The Morning Person). But I am still trying to get up earlier. And I think I've stumbled on the secret: you have to have something to get up for.

After all, there are many parents out there who aren't morning people. But guess what? They have to get out of bed to make sure their children are fed, dressed and generally not neglected. Maybe they don't like it, but they have decided that having children – and happy healthy ones at that – is important to them. They also probably can't sleep through all the wailing.

In recent weeks I've determined that my days aren't exactly long enough. I can't do everything I want to do, plus my full-time job and also write this blog. So I'm attempting to get up 30 minutes earlier than my usual wake-up time. Not incredibly ambitious, but still, it's a big deal for me.

I'm not springing from bed at 6.30 a.m. (quite the contrary), but in the back of my mind I know that I want to get up to have some more time to work on the blog – and it makes me happy to be writing something that's not related to my day job.

Second, I tell myself is that I am not going to feel any better getting up 30 minutes later. And it's true – anytime before 9 a.m. is like hell to me, so even if I were to sleep for another hour, I'm not going to jump out of bed singing and dancing.

And third, there's the promise of Saturday and Sunday and wonderful lazy sleeping in.

But it's still early days. I've had false starts with these sorts of experiments before. I'll keep you posted. In the meantime, any other suggestions for effective ways to get up earlier?