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Night owls shouldn’t read this
Monday Funday am I right!
Yet, no one seems to love Mondays.
I suppose it’s because it’s the first day of work, responsibilities, and includes no “me-time”. Though as I learned today, it isn’t about the day, it’s about setting myself up for the day. And that starts with how you plan your weekend.
If that made no sense, then hear me out.
How I make habits
Back in the Spring of 2024, I made it a priority to write every morning, get outside right as the sun shines, and have breakfast 2 hours after getting up.
I made these requirements, because I had spent time doing each one of them separately for several months and had found myself more energetic and productive. So now was the time to pull them all together.
When getting started, it was tough to keep up the routine. But in time, it became an addiction. I would walk into the woods, seeing the bright rays of sunlight hitting the newly grown leaves, feeling the coolness of the forest, and feeling the best I had, well, in forever.
Though good things don’t seem to last, because after a whole 3 months of doing this between February — May, the humidity set in. I thought that I could keep this routine up for the whole year, but somehow I forgot how hot eastern USA has become in recent years.
Ever since that last day in May, I’ve been inside most of the time, and I’ve felt worse. Even so, throughout the summer I did something that seemed impossible…
I made reading a physical book a habit which I haven’t done in over 3 years! (You can read how I was able to here)
Now that I’ve incorporated this new habit, this month feels different. After being sluggish last week and finding myself barely keeping up my reading habit, I decided to plan ahead for how I wanted to change things.
I knew that Autumn was approaching, so I didn’t want to find myself inside by habit when it started getting cool. That’s when I began trying to get myself outside in the morning again.
Something I’ve noticed about myself, is that any habits I have over the weekdays always start on the weekend. So over the weekend, I felt like I was making slow progress in sticking to my habits. I didn’t know whether they would stick during the weekdays because I figured that I needed more time. Over the weekend I read my books, made pancakes for a change, tried going outside every morning, and I wrote a Medium article during the evening.
For some background info, during my recent Medium hiatus, I hadn’t written at all. I found myself not being able to eat 2 hours after getting up (I was too hungry) so I decided to make writing in the evenings a habit. But often, I couldn’t do it. Over last weekend though, I found the perfect time slot that used to be busy, but now was completely free.
Having done it Sunday night, my plan was to continue writing every evening from then on in addition to waking up early.
I thought you were too hungry?
That’s what I thought, and this morning I was. But having pushed my Medium-writing habit to the evenings and still getting to bed early, I was able to get up a little earlier. My goal in doing this, was to do a college writing assignment I had been procrastinating on. Doing it in the mornings would give me the ability to focus on it since I have the most energy then.
Has this plan panned out?
Yep! I successfully got a good chunk of writing for college done this morning, in addition to writing in the evenings (otherwise you wouldn’t be reading right now).
Why it worked
Having done the following:
- Getting up a little earlier over the weekend
- Planning in advance the habits I wanted done
- Taking action by fitting time in for that habit
Today has been the best I’ve felt, since last Spring I mean.
While this is for people who are daylight folks, if you happen to be a night owl and didn’t take the warning in the beginning of this article…
You can do the same, just flip-flop the time for night.
The only way you’re gonna have a fun Monday is to plan it ahead of time by taking action on the weekend.
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