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Humans 101
The Art of Waking Up Earlier Than Everyone Else
Getting up at the crack of dawn is so much more than a productivity hack
A few weekends ago, I drove to Vermont with my best friends from college. We studied at a small college in the Green Mountains, and adore the landscape and community.
We planned to swim, hike, drink good beer, and eat lots of maple creemees. We’d only be there for one full day, so I wanted to start our nostalgic summer joy early. Like, 6:00 a.m. early.
My friends, decidedly, did not.
So, when my internal alarm clock woke me up at 5:30 a.m., I quietly pulled on workout gear, snuck out of our one-room Airbnb, and sealed the door behind me. The air was cool without a trace of New York City humidity. The light was low and pink. A nearby stream audibly bubbled, and I’m pretty sure I heard a frog croak. I looked at my phone: no notifications. With my dog back in the city, I had no one to walk, feed, or take care of.
I took a single deep breath, then another.
I thought about going for a run, then began walking instead. My feet dampened in the dewy grass outside our apartment. By the time I got to town, my head was a bit achy and tired. The week had been full of clients, interviews, and anxiety. Life stuff. I needed coffee.
Sitting alone at the one shop open before 7:00 a.m., I contemplated my obsession with waking up early. My childhood was defined by my annoyance with my parents’ and brother’s inability to wake up at dawn. “The most successful people in the world wake up before six,” my mom would always say, before reminding me to never wake her up before nine. While my family found comfort in sleeping late and lounging around in the mornings, I always found myself up, dressed, and eager for action by seven.
While this imbalance is likely the result of a simple difference in when my family and I feel most energized (it’s true, they’re usually up working, chatting, and partying far later than I’ve ever been), it often manifested in frustration: While they perceived my early-morning energy as rushing them, or stressing them out, I perceived their late-morning lounging as lackadaisical and boring.
