morning

What Is Your Time?

/ Sloan / Leave a comment

I wish all day was the morning time, until it was dinner time and bed time and then it would be morning again. I don’t wish it was morning so that I could drink coffee all day, though that would be a perk! But the am hours are the hours that I am most productive.

Things Sloan is good at in the morning:

  • Writing
  • Reading
  • Working out/running/swimming
  • Opportunity hunting
  • Training clients
  • Writing workouts for said clients
  • Working at work
  • Meditating

So, pretty much everything. My brain power starts at about 5am and gets a little foggy mid morning, I power up with a snack and I do pretty well until about 2:30pm. It’s not to say that I don’t get things done later in the day–I have to, it’s life. But I definitely prefer and produce better work early.

With that said I obviously can’t fit everything in in those hours. So I have started assigning hours. I take each day individually–Lord knows no day is the same–I approach the day with a list of things that absolutely need to get done. And I start filling in time slots:

Wednesday:
630am: Client
7:40am: Client
8:40am: Find coffee shop and write this post
10am: Be on time for work
10-1145am: Emails, client work outs, check in with boss
12-12:45pm: Teach a kick ass class (this is my work out for the day)

So at this point my morning is gone and I’ve yet to have more than 45 minutes to myself. I’m literally at said coffee shop writing this. Feeling like I’m racing against the clock because I have 36 minutes until I have to clock in at work. Then POOF, my morning is gone and I won’t be home with my own time until 7:45pm with a 4am wake up call. So what is a girl to do when mornings are reserved for other people? The time that I’m most productive is literally bought every week.

This is something I’m working on currently. I know that at 8pm I’m not going to want to work on my personal writing, or this website, or stage some beautiful instagram photo. I’m going to want to veg in front of the couch with a jar of peanut butter and turn my brain off.

I think there’s a lot to be said for finding your most productive time, however, I also know that we don’t all live the life of leisure to be able to do what we want when we want. We have to work around our jobs, kids, partners and other life obligations.

So, new goals for these coming weeks. I’m going to resist the TV brain mush urge. I’m going to play music and read instead. Or maybe I’ll do the dishes that have been piling up for three days. I’m going use myself as an experiment to shift my productivity hours to the afternoon or evening.

This may take a lot of coffee and will power–I would love any tips you have. Have you done this? How did you succeed? Will I be sad that I’m missing my favorite Netflix original series premier?

thesolesearch

Good morning Chicago

 

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Get Moving!

/ Sloan / Leave a comment

My mornings have changed. The warm weather. The sun up with the crows. People outside my window shouting at each other at 5:30, ya know, things that just make it easier to get up at 6 am. I like it, I enjoy the mornings alone, with my computer or a book but more recently I’ve been talking the time to walk. More or less coming off a running injury I walk/run but I enjoy both equally and try really hard to get a couple miles in before I hop on my bike and head to school.

I have always stated that morning time is my most productive time. Right now it’s 6:49 am and I have cooked breakfast, made coffee, cleaned the kitchen, read up on a few articles and will head out for a walk as soon as I finish typing this though. Some wouldn’t consider ‘a walk’ productive. But for me it’s my morning meditation, it gives me a head start on my goal of 10,000 steps for the day (though when I walk or run I tend to get closer to 14,000!) I kick my metabolism up right away. I clear my mind and set an intention. Sometimes I listen to a podcast to get ideas to be more productive through out the ENTIRE day–I tend to hit a slump around 3:30 and just want to lounge around after that.

So I walk. And I think. And I shut the brain off. And I observe–lord knows there’s a lot to observe in Humboldt Park at 7 in the morning.

How do you start your day? What can you do before life gets to busy to get moving and get yourself closer to those 10,000 steps? It’s recommended that each adult gets at least 30 minutes of activity a day, which is easy for some of us and a challenge for other–how can we get closer to achieving that minimum and maybe going beyond it? (Some people post on social media to get some motivation.. hence this blog post, I was feeling lazy but now I feel motivated!)

I’ll post a picture from my walk this morning, check it out on InstaGram @sloanderr and let me know what you think. #thesolesearch #goodmorning

Keep Your Lady Balls In Check

/ Sloan / 2 Comments

My bed has sucked my morning mojo out of me. My OkCupid profile claims that I’m an extreme morning person, I’ve always said I’d rather wake at 5am rather than stay up until the wee hours of the morning. I love enjoying a cup of coffee or tea alone with a book, my journal or my computer. I love the alone time of the early AM and savor every minute I’m up before my roommates are. But since I bought the bed that I wanted, the firm mattress my back craves, the cozy down comforter I stole from my mother’s house when I moved, the pillows that support my neck just right–I have a really hard time getting up. The bed swallows me up and hugs me tight so I am unable to leave when, in the past, I would normally wake.
Things I enjoy doing in the morning: running, reading, writing, researching, cooking, journaling… my basic brain function is best between the hours of 6am and about 2pm. After that I can’t promise my best self, my best attitude, or my best effort to care about anything. So in an effort to be a better human being I’m trying to get up earlier again.
Yesterday the alarm went off at 5:16, yes, a Sunday alarm set for 5:16. By 5:42 I had laced my running shoes, buddled up as much as possible and set off to run five miles before the sun was set to rise at 6:49am. I’m determined to run all winter long and train for a January half-marathon. In college I did, why not now? So Sunday morning was to prove to myself that I still have the lady balls to get out there and log the miles–no matter how far below freezing Chicago gets!
The still morning reminded me how quiet the streets of Thailand were when I began my training there. However the temperature difference, the idea of quiet alone time was still the same. Morning mediation on my feet. Discovering what the city looks like, smells like, feels like, early in the morning is something I’ve done every place I’ve lived and visited. This was a first for me in Chicago–I’ve walked the streets late at night after a night out with friends, exploring new bars, parks and taken bus rides to avoid the cold or heat. But nothing compares to being on foot, alone on streets you’ve walked or rode a bunch of times before the sun peaks above the skyline.
Everything looks different in the morning. Stores are asleep, coffee shops are just blinking an eye to be awake and get the day started–running past them shut down and dark the city looks so different, it looks at peace.
I am at peace when I’m out there. My run yesterday cleared my head for the day to come, set my schedule and tired my legs. At my turn around point there was a bank clock and thermometer that read “6:04am 14 degrees”. Now I KNOW I can run that far, in that cold, that early. Every time I do that I have mixed emotions; now I know I can do it, so that means I can’t wuss out–and now I have to one up myself, I have to go further, earlier and when it’s colder just to prove to myself I can.

This morning I wussed out so I could spend the early moments reading and writing. But tomorrow, tomorrow is a new day and winter is only getting colder.