Mark Twain once wrote, “I have tried getting up early, and I have tried getting up late—and the latter agrees with me best.”
I’m with you, Mark. I abhor waking up. Every morning, I silence the first of my iPhone’s three alarms (set for 5:30, 5:45, and 6 a.m., thanks to the fact that I work East Coast hours from the West Coast), bend myself reluctantly out of bed, pick crud out of my eyes, and try to convince myself that today is going to be the day I become a morning person. It never works, though—in part, I suspect, because I’ve never learned the proper methods.
I decided to start the “Self-Bettering” series—a step-by-step attempt to optimize each part of my daily routine, from morning to night—by revamping my wake-up ritual.