Joshua Sheats @JoshuaSheats: How does one to be an early riser? Nothing has ever worked for me.
ANSWER:
There is only one trick to getting up early: going to sleep early. We all feel like we can’t go to sleep early. We might miss something. Often night is the time we can read. Or socialize. Or eat. Or drink. Or watch TV.
Well, stop all of those things. Don’t eat a meal after 5 or 6pm. Don’t watch TV (what’s good on TV anyway?). Don’t socialize too much (do your friends need to see you every night?). Don’t drink – its both a depressant and filled with sugar and calories, which will keep you up at night. Networking at night is ok, but you can’t do it every day. Maybe once a week.
The benefits of waking up early are enormous. You are able to focus better. Your day will be filled with success by the time everone is just waking up.
You can read more. You can exercise. You can think. You can work and nobody is up to bother you. You can meditate or pray. There’s no temptation to drink or eat a heavy meal. You can see the emptiness of where you live when the sun just peeks out and lights it up. You can feel the freshness of the air. You can take a pad and after you are done reading, you can write down ideas.
You might not want to do this. It doesn’t work for everyone. But maybe try it. And see what happens. Try to starting “going down” around 7:30 or 8pm. And by 9pm you will be sleep, and by 5am you will have 8 hours of refreshing sleep. Try it. Will it kill you?