THE 6am CLUB
The way I did it.
I set my alarm for 6am every day.
The experiment was to test the advice of leadership experts and self-help gurus who encourage getting up early every morning. General consensus suggests that creating the habit of starting your day with intention and simple accomplishments will lead to increased productivity and emotional well-being.
Yes, please!
Robin Sharma recommends starting the day at 5am in his book, The 5 AM Club: Own Your Morning, Elevate Your Life. This all sounds well and good, but 5am is entirely too early. I knew I couldn’t sustain that. So, my plan was to set the alarm for 6am and find out if getting up early would start my day AND keep my day on a positive trajectory.
You see, I’m in a funk. I’ve been dragging myself through each day. The morning coffee that usually gets me going stopped doing the trick. And worse, my sluggish start continued throughout the day. And the afternoon coffee wasn’t working any better. I was getting a lot done, but rather than a feeling of satisfaction that usually accompanies checking things off my list, I felt exasperated that there was still so much more to do. I’m not loving this version of my day.
Something unusual happened about the same time I noticed this funk. Perhaps not unusual for most … it was January, after all … but it was definitely unusual for Florida. It had been cold for several days in a row. Not just cold, but freezing cold, with a windchill in the teens. On the second day of the cold snap, the branches of my favorite trees—the three double clusters of Christmas palms along one side of our yard—had turned brown. They may not survive the cold snap, which is very sad. When I planted the trees years ago, they were barely two feet tall, and now they soar over twenty feet.
It was the freezing cold that led to the next thing that happened. For several mornings in a row, I stayed in bed. Our house was cold and dark. Of course we have heat, but it was no match for the early morning temperature; the thermostat read 62 degrees!
It was so warm and cozy, curled up under the covers. I stayed in bed so long that I had to rush to make it to work on time. And if I’m being honest, I noticed that starting my morning late set off a chain reaction, and I was behind all day.
Could that be the reason for my funk? Would having an extra hour or two at the start of the day make a difference? I was going to find out.
The first day was easy; the alarm went off, and I got up.
The second and third days took a little more convincing. I was glad for my sunrise lamp. I bought the sunrise lamp because I loathe getting up and out of bed when it’s still dark. Having a little light definitely helped; I managed to get up and going about 6:05 and 6:07, respectively.
On the fourth day, I hit the snooze button.
By Friday, the final day of my experiment, I hit the snooze … and then I hit it again … and again. It was 6:30 when I guilted myself out from under the covers. And in case you are curious, it was COLD. This cold snap has been the coldest and longest of any we have had for more than ten years.
It’s because of that cold snap that I’ve decided to give myself a little grace and continue my experiment. My days did start to feel a little less dreary. On three of the five nights of my experiment week, I had time to “meal prep” healthy lunches and make dinner when I got home—two things I didn’t have the time or the energy to do before.
Perhaps my stumbling block was not only the cold, but also not having planned anything to do when the alarm went off. I was missing the second part of the recommendation, which was to celebrate a small accomplishment. For that reason, and armed with the plan to exercise, meditate, or read at the start of each day, I will continue to set my alarm for 6am.
The way I did it. The 6am club.
This is part of what I’m calling Expeditionvision—trying things on purpose and paying attention to what happens. I’m not offering advice or giving instructions. I’m just sharing the way I did it. If there’s something that you’ve been wanting to do—but haven’t—I’d love to hear about it. I’m open to reader suggestions for future experiments.
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I’ve added a short field notes section below with what surprised me the most, and what I wouldn’t do the next time.