Get Up Early So You Can Chill Out

“Sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between two deep breaths.”
– Etty Hillesum

I‘m a big believer in striving for your goals, being as productive as possible when working on tasks, and scheduling in the most important things in your life. You want to live life to the fullest – and to do that we have to find time to squeeze all the important activities in.

And you know what one of those important activities is?

Finding time to relax.

You and I are probably pretty similar – we want to live a balanced life, however inside we’re also often torn, because deep down we want to accomplish great things – and that’s very difficult to do when attempting to balance our ambition against relaxing, taking up hobbies, enjoying spending time with friends, family – or just appreciating a moment of quiet solitude and rest.

Finding Time To Relax In The Morning

Some common benefits are things we all desire, and that you would expect to get out of a course about being an early riser:

Become more productive
Prepare your mind for the day ahead
Work on your life goals

One of the benefits he mentions early on though really jumped out at me – and it’s one that I don’t think gets the kind of attention it deserves from productivity junkies like myself:

Get time to chill out

Getting Up Early – And Chilling Out

I don’t talk about it much, but making time to relax, meditate, go for walks clearing my mind, hiking and just chilling out – either with my thoughts or with my friends – is very important to me. While it’s one of my priorities, it’s just not something you can really write about.

I spend a large part of my day in leisure, enjoyable activities – and early in the morning, getting up before everyone else does gets me a head start not just on my work – but it also gets me a head start on my downtime.

Here’s what it comes down to:

If you wake up right before you have to be somewhere, you’ve got to immediately jump into your day.
If you wake up early, you can spend some time working on yourself, planning things out – or just take the time to relax before an important event

As an example, I’m taking a flight to Vegas in a few hours, but rather than sleeping in until the last minute, I’ve already finished packing, and I’m up early looking over the schedule for Blogworld (email me – contact@sidsavara.com if you want to meet up).

There’s no way I could have done that if I woke up immediately before I had to leave. Even if I had packed the night before, and had everything ready to go, I would still have to rush out the door to get to the airport so I could leave. As it stands, I’ll spend some time playing guitar, eating breakfast, and probably just hang out on my balcony for a few minutes looking at the ocean before I leave – and it all started with waking up early.

It’s not just about getting the most done – it’s also about finding time to chill out.

Finding Time To Relax In The Morning

Getting Up Early – And Chilling Out

Further Reading