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

Leah Fessler
Human Parts
Published in
9 min readJul 12, 2019

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Photo: Stephen Simpson/Getty Images

AA 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…

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Leah Fessler
Human Parts

Investor at NextView Ventures. Journalist. Thinking about gender, equality, and pugs. Formerly at Chief, Quartz, Slow, Bridgewater Associates, Middlebury.