Don’t let morning sleep inertia beat you to a good start of the day.
Every day billions of people get out of bed, disoriented and clumsy, waiting for their brainpower to boot up. Until that happens, they must fight an uphill battle in order to complete very simple tasks, such as brewing coffee, fixing breakfast, choosing what to wear, packing lunch, filling kids’ lunchboxes, and making sure they put their work laptops back in their backpacks, to name a few. Also, they have to be on the lookout for the dreaded time pounce.
What’s a time pounce?
You start brushing your teeth at 6:05 am. You blink and when you look back at the clock it’s already 6:14 am. That’s a time pounce. Clocks and watches try to drive you crazy in the morning, by making time go faster when you’re not looking. Nah, just kidding. You’re groggy, that’s all. By the way, you didn’t exactly blink, you spaced out, which is the way your brain yawns when it’s in the process of waking up. It takes your brain up to 30 minutes to go from “sleep” to “awake” mode.[1] During that period you’re terrible at managing time. If you think of time as a currency, everything is more expensive during the first couple of hours after you wake up, and then “prices” start going down as the day progresses.
Your hard-earned time currency is better spent at night
Spending your time currency at night is so much wiser than doing it in the morning. It’s the same with the electric company rates: it’s cheaper to do your laundry and dry your clothes during the “off-peak” period. Your time currency goes further the night before when compared to the next day in the morning. Here’s a “price” comparison table to illustrate the advantages of getting certain things ready before you go to bed, as opposed to struggling with them during the morning:
Granted, it’s not a perfect system. No system is. But at least you’ll be better prepared for whatever contingency that might show up in the morning.
Ripple effect of wasting time currency in the morning
More often than not, the minute you realize time’s slipping away during your morning routine, you’ll panic, and from that moment everything goes downhill, opening the doors to stress, yelling, crying, and road rage, not to mention friction at work and school.
It’ll only be harder in the morning
Yep, that’s your mantra right there for those times when you are too tired to get things done the night before. As daunting as any task feels at the end of the day, it’ll be so much worse in the morning, when your skull is filled with cobwebs. ☼
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Alex Guerrero is a content creator who lives in Lawrence, KS. He’s very vocal in his displeasure over pineapple pizza. Chocolate, on the other hand, makes everything better!
[1] Betuel, E. (2018, October 24). Brain scans reveal why it takes so long to wake up in the morning. Retrieved March 06, 2021, from https://www.inverse.com/article/50128-how-long-does-it-take-to-wake-up-the-brain
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