How To Become a Morning Person in 6 Proven Steps : Just Like Tim Cook

“Good Morning” – a greeting that is dished out several times during the day. For some people, morning is at 6AM, for somebody else, it’s at 11AM.

One of the most famous early risers is Apple’s CEO Tim Cook.

Tim Cook wakes up at 4:30 AM. He’s done with almost an entire day’s work by 12PM.

You might have read posts like this one suggesting that waking up early has a lot of benefits. That’s because it does.

So what are these benefits?

Waking up early gives you:

An early start on getting work done.
A quieter time; the house/the city is quiet and peaceful.
Your mind is the most clear in the morning and primed for handling the toughest tasks.

So how do you become a morning person?

1. Prepare for the next day

By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail. – Benjamin Franklin

This is such an under-appreciated thing.

We all prepare for meetings, exams, events, and so on. What we don’t do is, take it to the next level.

If you prepare for tomorrow, you get a clean and clear structure of what you want to do the next day. When your mind knows what it wants to do tomorrow, you will wake up with an intention to achieve your goals. It is that simple.

We don’t usually hype up ourselves about wanting to get up the next day. Being passive about waking up will lead nowhere.

Prepare for tomorrow and you will wake up automatically with the desire to achieve it.

prepare-morning — Preparing for the next day is the simplest hack for better mornings

2. Do NOT use your mobile devices or computer at night

Although we live in the modern world, our brains have primitive characteristics.

To the brain, white light means morning, and morning means staying awake.

If you stare at your phone screen or laptop screen for an hour and expect to go to sleep immediately, you will be disappointed. It’s very unnatural for our bodies to function in that way.

A lot of us cannot avoid this usage and a good way to counter this white light is to download the Flux app. The Flux app mimics the light outside and if it is evening time, your screen gets an orange tinge and it gets darker as time progresses.

This automatically tells your brain that it’s night time as it counters the bright white screen.

3. Do NOT bring your work to bed

Your night routine should be different from your morning routine.

Work is expected to be done in the morning, and if you bring it to bed before you sleep, then your morning routine and night routine is the same.

You subconsciously tell your body to stay awake because you are working.

When you get to bed, do something else that is different from your morning routine like reading a book or taking a hot bath.

In the morning

4. Keep your alarm away from you

This is a super simple hack to get you out of bed immediately.

If you keep your alarm on your phone and your phone is next to you, then your immediate reaction will be to turn over and press the snooze button.

If you keep your alarm at a distance where you have to physically get up to switch off the alarm, you’re already awake and out of bed.

5. Perform an activity that wakes you up

Everybody has an activity that they can perform which signifies that they’ve woken up completely. This activity takes us from the groggy phase to the woken up phase.

This can either be a quick cup of coffee, a cold shower, or just a few simple stretches.

Find out your activity that will help you transition to the woken up phase and do it every morning.

6. Have some “Me” time for yourself

Being healthy and having a good feeling about yourself is key to being productive and happy.

If you are able to create some “Me” time for yourself that includes meditation, mindfulness, and/or thinking about your future, then you will have created a time in the morning that you will be looking forward to. You will want to wake up early just to have this “Me” time.

Make yourself feel good and feed yourself positive thoughts during this time. Not only will it motivate you to wake up early, but it’ll set you up for a cheerful, positive day.

Extra Tips

Go light on the alcohol especially on the weekends.
Keep your Sundays relaxed and sleep early.
Try not to consume alcohol on a Sunday that can disrupt your Mondays.
The momentum of a good week should not be lost because of a heavy weekend.

It’s not difficult to become a morning person. If you consistently continue it for a few weeks, you’ll notice that you automatically wake up even before the alarm rings.