Around the holidays, one of the most common questions you hear thrown around is: “what’s your New Year’s resolution?”

For some reason, whenever I hear the responses, I oftentimes have a hard time believing that they will come true. Not because I don’t admire the fact that people resolve to improve themselves, but rather because the resolutions tend to be very vague (what does “become healthier” even mean) and typically lack an actual plan for making them happen.

Recently, I have stumbled across a concept of an Annual Review. Essentially, it’s a document that you put together over the course of a few days and the purpose of it is to deliberately plan for what you want your next year to look like. It starts off by looking at what went well this year, where you failed, what lessons you learned and what you are grateful for. This serves as a foundation to creating a plan for the next year of what you want to accomplish and improve.

Instead of just creating 1-3 “generic” resolutions for the year ahead, you approach this methodically by looking at all areas of life that are important to you. There can be as many or as few as you want – as long as they are things that you want to improve in some way.  For me, they are (in no particular order):

Business & Work
Adventure & Travel
Health
Family & Friends
Romantic Relationships
Learning
Helping Others
Legacy
Financial (Earnings)
Leadership

Once you have the categories defined, the second step is to come up with several goals to go within each “bucket”. It’s important to be specific, so that you know exactly what you expect of yourself and whether you actually reach the goal. “Becoming healthier” is too vague to be useful; while “exercise 5 times per week by March” is something that you can actually hold yourself accountable against.

For each goal, you then create a plan of action and a deadline. Figure out what are the steps that you need to take in order to make it happen and when. They don’t have to go into extreme detail, but you should at least outline the first few steps right away. I also found it really helpful to create a timeline of the year and map out all of the actions and goals against it.

As somebody once said: “you can generally do everything that you want to do, just not at the same time.” – this makes it easier to see how the goals fit against each other and anticipate whether you’ll have time for it. When I did it for 2011, I actually had to remove a few goals due to scheduling issues or because I realized that it would be simply to overwhelming.

Finally, once you’re done setting up the goals and objectives, you want to look at each category and figure out what the theme is or, as I call it, “What’s the Point?” What is it that you will accomplish by fulfilling these goals and why is it important? This exercise helps to figure out the big picture and ensure that your goals are aligned with it. For many people, the “What’s the Point?” step will come first and the goals will follow after, but for me, it works the other way around.

The Next Step

When you complete the document, you’ll have a roadmap for the year ahead. Most importantly, if you do it right, it will contain 30-50 goals that are truly important and meaningful to you. It’s incredibly useful to have that laid out in front of you throughout the year.

However, it’s only the beginning. The next step is to actually track yourself against these goals. That consists of two components:

The first one is a monthly plan that you should put together in the beginning of each month. For me, as January rolled around, I realized that there are 20+ different things I need to do this month to move forward with the goals and unless I plan to incorporate them into my routine, I can easily drop the ball. So, I recommend going through your goals in the beginning of each month and looking at what needs to be done that month and moving that into a separate To-Do list.

The second component is the Quarterly Review. Your chances of actually completing most of your set objectives by the end of the year is much higher if you evaluate yourself against your goals on a regular basis. As the year goes by, it’s helpful to setup a time every 3 months to go over your progress and see how you’re doing.

It’s important to note that completing all of the goals is not necessarily realistic because they can become outdated or irrelevant. Plus, if you do complete them all, it’s possible that they were simply set too low. In my opinion, if you’re able to do about 75-80% of them, then you’re doing quite well.

Final Thoughts

I turned 25 recently and, on that birthday, there was a flashback to celebrating the 21st birthday a few years ago. It was fascinating to realize that 4 years have gone by so quickly and a reminder that the next 4 will go by as well.

I firmly believe that we need to live our lives deliberately or the years will get away from us and we’ll just be left with things that we’ve wanted to accomplish, but “just never had enough time” for. I also believe that we tend to overestimate the amount of things we can do in a day, yet underestimate what we can accomplish in a year. When you think about what you want to do over the year and put down concrete objectives and steps, it has a way of gaining a form and becoming a reality.

I hope that you will go ahead and try the exercise for yourself.

In the meantime, if you want to see my 2011 Annual Review & Plan, you can view it here.

Credit: I’ve gotten the idea and guidance for the Annual Review from the blog, Art of Non-Conformity. I’ve made some changes to it and customized to fit my own needs, but the credit for the idea certainly goes to the original author, Chris Guillebaeu.

I still don’t know exactly what makes her do it, but for me, it comes down to several reasons:

It’s a Rock of Stability – when everything else in the life is unstable or unclear, a running routine becomes one of the few things you can rely on in your day to day routine – as stable as a rock. It’s one of the things that’s entirely under your control and you know that you’re the one that decides whether you’re going to go or not, whether you’ll run fast or slow, far or close. It genuinely creates a certain comfort during a crazy day when you have a run to to look forward to.

It’s Slightly Painful - not in a bad way, but it definitely pushes your body slightly outside of your comfort zone. As a result, there is a bit of pain associated with it which makes you more acutely aware of yourself and your body. Sometimes, it can be a good thing, as it makes you appreciate your body more.

It Makes You Feel Strong - while I’ve never been a particularly athletic person in my childhood years, there is a certain pride that comes your way when you know that you’re capable of running 5 miles, 10, 26. During a typical run, I find that that you go through the initial phase when you start off fresh and energetic, a phase in the middle when you start to get slightly tired or out of breath, and then a final phase when you catch the second wind. That last phase brings a new outburst of energy because you realize that you’ve already gone a long way, but can still have it in you to keep going. You’ve pushed yourself and you’ve accomplished something and made your body stronger.

It’s Peaceful - going running in the mornings, around 6am, especially when it’s colder and there are fewer people outside is really serene. You get to see the city wake up, you get to see the sunset, and you get to be on your own with your thoughts or music. It’s simply a good start to a new day.

At the end of the day, do I enjoy waking up extra early and going for a run? Generally, the answer is no. I have a difficult time getting out of bed at 6am and would certainly prefer to sleep for an extra hour or so, especially during the cold winter months. And, to tell the truth, running itself isn’t too pleasurable in its own right.

However, inevitably, after I complete each run and return home, I am really glad I’ve done it. After a while, it becomes drug-like – you need to do it or you end up feeling grumpy, cranky or unsatisfied with yourself. But maybe that’s just me.

How can you tell if the work that you’re doing is truly your “thing”? If it’s something that you’re meant to be doing, as opposed to doing it for the paycheck or just because you’re going through the motions?

Sometimes, we can tell quite easily when it’s not “our” thing. We simply don’t enjoy the work, don’t look forward to it, or see it as a dead-end path. Or, there is the opposite, there is no doubt in your mind that this is what you’re meant to be doing.

But oftentimes, the answer can be hidden in the shades of gray. This can happen in a job that you do enjoy to a large degree and things aren’t all good or all bad, yet there is a nagging feeling that it’s not really what you want.

It can come down to one characteristic that helps reveal whether the work is the right fit. Caring about the little details.

When you’re doing work that you feel you are meant to be doing, your motivation comes from the internal satisfaction of the work itself. Doing the job well is rewarding enough. And that clearly shows when you care about the little details that create the distinction between the work that’s “good enough” and work that’s “great”. Sometimes those details are not noticed by anybody else, except yourself. Caring about the little things is ultimately what ends up separating the true passionate individuals and professionals from everybody else.

On the other hand, if your motivation comes from external factors – whether it’s money, stability, or fear – it becomes easier to let the details slip. That’s not to say that you won’t try to do your best, but simply that these details won’t seem as important. After all, as long as you get the job done, it’s good enough. You don’t necessarily see the point in spending more time on a task, if the end result is roughly the same.

There are, of course, other factors that come into play that can affect this. Burnout and stress can cause passionate and committed people to start slipping, even if they don’t intend to. Poor management can stifle creativity and attention to detail, if it  constantly shifts priorities and focus of work. But, ultimately, the external factors only put emphasis on what is already there – they are not responsible nor will completely change whether you love your work or not.

Why is it even important to understand this? If you realize that your work isn’t your calling, what’s the purpose of even knowing that?

Underlying Reasons – at the end of the day, we should understand the reasons that make us do the things that we do. Not everyone is always in a position to completely change their situation, but if we aren’t consciously aware of what we’d want to change, we don’t even have a chance to try.

Going With the Flow - as it happens for many of us, we end up getting caught in a certain flow of college, work, career. Many of the paths that we end up taking happen by accident or unintentionally. While that is perfectly normal – as we’re usually not able to predict all of the opportunities that will be available to us in advance anyway – we should still pause every once in a while and re-evaluate if we’re still heading in the right direction.

To Sleep Well At Night - a writer once said that the reason he made the plunge into writing was so that he could sleep well at night. He would often wake up with ideas and thoughts that would keep nagging him and he’d be unable to go back to sleep until he started putting them down on paper. It’s not just about writing – this applies to any sort of work: to sleep great at night, you need to feel that you’re doing something that calls out to you.

“The soul of the world is nourished by people’s happiness. And also by unhappiness, envy, and jealousy. To realize one’s destiny is a person’s only obligation. All things are one.”  The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

In our culture, we often equate the concept of bigger with being better. Getting a large ice cream cone will yield us more satisfaction than a smaller one, making $200,000 per year will make us happier than $100,000, and having a larger… well, you know.

It’s natural that the same idea applies to when you’re launching a new business. Oftentimes, before you even start, you’re already thinking about how you’re going to expand.

I found myself doing just that last year. When I was working with a partner on launching a hostel in New York, our plan from Day 1 was to go to about 5 locations within 5 years. We wanted to get the first one right within a year and a half and then begin to aggressively expand in other cities.

Thinking back to that moment now, I was struggling to figure out why was this the goal. Did running one location somehow feel inferior or was going to be less satisfying than 5? Was making more money worth having 5 times the headache? Was it worth spreading ourselves thin and potentially sacrificing quality in the never-ending pursuit of growth?

I’ve had a few answers for this. I suppose that it would’ve been more of a status symbol to be able to say that I own a national chain of hostels, instead of a single location in New York. And perhaps it would be interesting to be able to operate in different cities, as a learning experience. Finally, it’s also likely that having a larger chain would make it a more attractive business to be acquired down the line, so it would yield a bigger pay off. But, the most subtle yet powerful reason would probably be boredom. Within a year or two, if you build your business right, it ends up running yourself and you begin to seek out other challenges,

But would it make work and life more satisfying and happier? I ultimately don’t think so. More was not necessarily going to lead to a more fulfilling life.

Working in the current startup, we’re in a similar mode. The plan is to expand and become bigger and service more people as soon as we possibly can. Yet I can’t help but feel that we’re doing this on an autopilot, where we automatically equate bigger with being better and more successful. What if we only remained in one city, but did it really well? What if we never grew beyond a small staff of people and a base of loyal customers? What if it was a lifestyle business where you’d be able to keep a normal balance between life and work? Is that inherently bad because it doesn’t go with the “grow, grow, grow” mantra?

Ultimately, if becoming larger is something that you think will make your life and the business better, than by all means – go for it. However, before expanding for expansion’s sake, think about the true motivations behind this. There is a lot at stake.

Up until the age of 19-20, I’ve felt that I followed a fairly conventional path in life. I did what I was expected to do and did not have any plans to deviate from it. Then when I turned 21, I’ve gone on my first major overseas trip. It was 3 weeks in South America. The trip itself was very enjoyable, but more than that – when I came back, something changed within me.

There were two discoveries that I’ve made during that trip that influenced many of my choices that followed:

The first discovery was that the world is a much smaller place than we make it out to be. Through lack of knowledge, incorrect facts that come from our friends and families, and general fear of the unknown, we divide the world in two zones – safe and off-limit. The safe one is Europe, vacation resorts, places we hear a lot about. Unsafe is everything that sounds exotic and far – Africa, South America, Asia. It’s a silly preconception and going to one of the “off-limit” countries for the first time quickly proved that the world and the people, no matter how far away, are not as different as we make them out to be.

The next discovery – even bigger in magnitude and impact – was the fact that it was actually possible for me to go and spend 3 weeks in South America. Me – the person that has never really traveled far and on my own; the person that typically stayed within the boundaries of reasonable and what was expected. It was mind-boggling to start thinking about the possibilities. Possibilities in terms of travel and all the countries that previously only captured the imagination, but suddenly started to seem attainable. But it could even been taken beyond travel – possibilities in terms of life options and things that I could do. What if all those things that we often talk about, but never actually act upon, were possible and attainable.

Since then, there started growing a drive to push the boundaries of life in as many directions as possible. Whether learning how to operate a new mode of transportation, starting a business that you know nothing about, or picking up and moving to volunteer in a different country for a while – all of this was driven in part by the inherent value of the activity, but also to simply prove to yourself that you can actually do it. That there is nothing impossible about it and nothing that you can’t handle.

If our reality is part the circumstances of the world around us; and part of what we create it out to be, why not create a reality where everything is attainable – that is if you really want it and work to get it.

I had a 4-hour bus trip planned this weekend from Boston to New York. The trip is a fairly regular one that I take every 2-3 weeks. But as I was booking the ticket and planning what I’ll be able to do on the bus, I realized that I’m looking forward to the journey as much – if not more – than the actual destination itself. There’s a special feeling when you pack your backpack, close the door to your house and set off – whether for just a day or a month.

It’s been true in many instances before. When I had a chance to live in 3 countries and visit 12 over the course of 8 months, I found immense satisfaction in planning the journey and the actual travel between destinations. Getting to the location was the goal at the end and gave meaning to the journey, but it was always bittersweet when I actually got there, as it meant that the journey itself was over. Before long, I was already planning the next leg of the trip.

I think I’m not the only one who feels this way. Chris Guillebeau, man who decided to travel to every country in the world within 5 years and the author of Art of Non-Conformity blog, reports that for him, he enjoys travel just for traveling sake. The audacious plan to visit every country justifies it, but he finds the actual process as enjoyable as the destinations. There is certainly a feeling of freedom and adventure that you feel right before and during the journey.

So, for the next trip or vacation, perhaps the journey should be viewed as an integral part of the trip – rather than an obstacle than stands between you and the destination?

About 6 months ago, I’ve written a post called “Making a Choice, Any Choice” which covered some some of the problems associated with indecisiveness. Getting stuck in a “limbo” between multiple options, unable to commit to any specific one, can end up being even more damaging that making a wrong choice.

A few weeks ago, I’ve read a book called “Predictably Irrational”, by Dan Ariely, which goes into some of the irrational, yet expected and predictable behaviors that people seem to repeat again and again. One of the behaviors covered was the the difficulties we face when minimizing or removing choices.

In general, we all feel that having no choice is a bad thing. Especially in the Western world, we grow up feeling that the more we have to choose from, the better our odds are at selecting the right choice. However, as counterintuitive as it may be, it turns out that having too many choices ends up being bad for us just as well. Not only it makes it more difficult to make a commitment, but it also ends up wasting our time as we contemplate each of the possibilities.

The Effect of Too Many Doors

A great example of this was shown in an experiment conducted by Dan Ariely. In the experiment, he selected 3 groups of MIT students and asked them to play a simple computer game.

In the game, they saw 3 doors on the screen. The first click on any of the doors would open it, and any subsequent click on the open door would earn them a random amount of money. At any point, they could “spend a click” on opening another door, which would also close the previous one (these clicks would not earn them cash).

The objective was to earn as much money as possible with a limit of 50 clicks. Since the amounts were random, the best strategy was to waste as little clicks as possible on opening doors and instead use them within a single door as “money-generating” clicks. Most people figured it out relatively quickly. Simple enough, yes?

The second group of people had a similar task. The difference was that with every click they would make within 1 door, the other doors would begin to diminish by 1/8th. In other words, if a door wouldn’t get any “attention” within 8 clicks, it would disappear completely off the screen. However, clicking on a disappearing door during that time would bring it back to full size and allow you to generate money within it.

This twist doesn’t change the strategy people should pursue. It’s still more profitable to use up your clicks within a single door rather than try to resurrect disappearing ones. Did the students get that? The results are shocking – most people had such an aversion to “losing” the doors, that they would jump from one to the other throughout the entire game. End result? Much poorer performance than the first group.

Final group had a similar experience, except that they were told that even if a door disappears completely off the screen, they can always bring it back by clicking once in its space. In other words, it was only an illusion of disappearing and the students knew it. How did they perform? As poorly as group #2. Even though they knew that the door can be brought back at any moment, they simply could not bear to see even the illusion of losing the door.

The Downside of Choice

As the experiment shows, there are a few issues that are surprising and worrying.

First, having more choices does not always yield us better results. Having 5 vacation destinations to choose from instead of a single 1 may actually diminish our enjoyment of any of them because we are always concerned about what we “could” be missing out on. It’s also been said that it’s more difficult to find and form relationships in a busy urban area than a smaller, more compact town precisely because of a dizzying array of choice. Having more options  keeps us from committing to any single one and giving it our all.

Second issue is our aversion to loss. Even if we rationally understand that we don’t need to have a dozen options to choose from when it comes down to selecting a vacation destination or a brand of batteries, it is very difficult to willingly remove a choice. We see this behavior reoccur in many other scenarios – for example, finding $100 on the street will make us a bit happy. However, losing your wallet with $100 will make us feel worse by an order of magnitude. There is certainly a reason why people say that we often don’t know exactly what we have until we lose it.

Now What?

If we have unlimited energy and unlimited time, perhaps we could keep as many “doors” as we want open. However, given our limitations, there is a cost associated with spreading yourself thin, trying to do it all, and not giving your full commitment to any one thing. As the doors experiment clearly showed, we can often come out at a loss when we try to do it all at once.

As Dan Ariely highlights, perhaps that once we become better aware of our emotions when it comes down to options and aversion to loss, we end up in a position to make better judgments.

I think so.

I can’t claim that I know the formula to success. In fact, I am cautious about even saying that there is one specific thing that works for all people at all times.

However, over the years, I’ve been in enough different work settings, worked with a range of different people and managed enough businesses to notice that there are a few clear traits that differentiate people who manage to find success in whatever endeavor they pursue and those that seem to struggle in making progress.

The good news is that none of these factors are pre-determined by birth. All of them are habits that we can develop with just a bit of conscious effort.  In fact, they seem so simple that you have to wonder why more people don’t do them!

Habit #1 – “GST” – Gettting Sh*t Done

One of the things that you can quickly observe about people that “push through” and move forward is that they have this ability of getting things done. If they commit to something, they find a way to do it.

It doesn’t always mean big projects or life-changing goals – the rule applies just as much to the small things that require attention, as it does to bigger projects.

What would be the opposite of “GST”? Talking about starting something but never quite making the first step, getting overwhelmed when things get hectic, or just dropping the ball on commitments. There is always an excuse to be found for not doing something, but at the end of the day when we look back at this time – but the end result is the same: no forward progress is made.

The Vagabond

A while back, I’ve stumbled across a piece of interesting research on something called “Existential Migration”. Developed by a psychologist, Greg Madison, it looks into a certain demographic of people that feel the urge for constant migration from one place to the other.

Unlike the typical push-or-pull migration we’re familiar with, these folks are not motivated by economic reasons, unstable situation in their home country, or a simple desire for travel. Rather, it’s a way of fulfilling deeper desires and the attempt to answer deeper “existential” questions about themselves – “who am I, what am I meant to be doing and where do I belong?”

On a blog where this research was recently discussed, a reader made an interesting comment that put the concept together: “I think there is an itch of dissatisfaction in many of our lives. Perhaps it is an intrinsic part of the human condition. Certainly in Britain, I think many people of my generation (I’m 31) are slightly lost. No longer religious, and dissatisfied with consumer culture, finding meaning in the daily grind is difficult…”

Madison provided a few interesting case studies of people he researched that embraced this lifestyle. One is a case of Alan, a successful banking executive from Maryland currently working in London. After leaving Maryland, he spent a year in New York, two years in Netherlands, currently on his third year in London – and yet again, he’s getting ready to pick up and move, this time to Lisbon.

People like Alan can often find familiarity suffocating or dull. What turns their switch and makes them feel alive is the feelings and processes associated with being a foreigner in a new land.

What’s fascinating is that Alan, without taking travel into consideration, made a number of life decisions – such as picking a career, education, etc. – that would increase his likelyhood of such lifestyle. In fact, for him, it can be even strange that most of the people around him have no desire to leave home, but are rather quite happy to plan their lives around friends and family and the familiar streets where they had grown up.

Unfortunately, this lifestyle comes with its share of downfalls. It looks like the thrill of moving wears off after a while – which is quite evident in Alan’s case, as he’s getting ready to move to a 4th country within 8 years.

Nick, the reader from the news site who was quoted earlier, added – “If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the past 10 years, it’s that upping and leaving for pastures new is in some ways a stop-gap. It may temporarily scratch that itch of dissatisfaction, but it doesn’t kill it….”

Having the Cake and Eating it Too

As I continued to think about the concept of existential migration, I couldn’t help but wonder if there was some sort of a middle ground. If there is a way to get that thrill of moving and experience of exploring a whole new land, without abandoning everything you’ve built up until that point. On a personal level, I feel quite happy with the life and opportunities that the U.S. has to offer, but often earn for the rich and satisfying experiences that living in a new place can offer.

Perhaps the key is with like everything else in life – do it in small doses.

Is it possible to consciously build a life style that would allow to pick up and move to a new country for about 4-6 months every 3 years or so? I think there are two pieces that would have to come together for this to work:

- Ability to leave work behind for an extended period of time or the ability to work remotely – both of these options are quite possible in today’s world. With the former, it’s almost expected that people will be switching their jobs every 2-3 years, so why not use the time in between to enrich your life with other experiences.

If you are a freelancer or own your own business, you have the ability to construct your business, lifestyle and schedules in such a way that would allow you to do this. And, if you can work from anywhere, even better! There is hi-speed internet and good coffee in every part of the world these days.

- Ability to do something productive wherever you move. Your experience in a new country will be richer by an order of magnitude if you tie yourself into the fabric of everyday life and get to interact with the local population through work. It doesn’t even necessarily need to be paid (if you can afford to skip a salary) – volunteering does a similar job.

Having a routine, bonding and growing closer with a group of colleagues, and actually making a contribution to the place where you live will give you a much richer experience altogether.

Naturally, as people read this, the first natural reaction for many is - “This could work for somebody else, but not for for me. My situation is just too complex. If I take half a year break after leaving a job, I’ll never find another one. There is no way that I could do my current job remotely. It’s just too much risk. I have no skills to bring elsewhere. Maybe when I retire…”

Some people may be right.

However, for most, this is just an automatic reaction against the possibility of dramatic, life-adjusting change. If you’re the type of person to be reading this blog, chances are that you can find a way to make this work. It just has to be approached creatively and you would like need to consciously make some very specific choices and sacrifices. If you want this, of course – not everyone does.

Why Do It?

There are a few things that I think you can get out of experiences like this:

New Language - if you’ve ever wanted to learn a new language but never had the time to actually do it, this is a damn good way to start. Six months in the actual country would accelerate the learning pace significantly – as opposed to simply taking language courses back at home. And just imagine that within a course of the next 10-12 years, you can gain conversational knowledge of 3 more languages (if you can find a way to practice them when you return)!

Inexpensive – cost of living becomes much lower in most of parts of the world if you settle there to live (as opposed to simply visiting as a tourist for a few weeks). For example, you can live very comfortably in most parts of the world for about $600-1,000/mo. Air travel is expensive, but if you have flexibility on dates and move there for at least a few months, it’s not that much in the grand of scheme. So, if you look at the maximum cost and say that you need a total of $6,000 for 6 months of living abroad and $1,000 for roundtrip airfare and do it every 3 years – you just need to save about $6/day to make it happen.

Travel Within Travel - one of the best parts about living in a different region of the world is that you have the opportunity to explore all of the nearby countries on the cheap. Take Asia, for example. Many of their low-cost air carriers offer flights to and from virtually every country in the region starting at just $20-40 one-way (quick search shows that a typical flight from Bangkok, Thailand to Phnom Penh, Cambodia is just $43.41 – taxes included). Within just a few months, you can end up visiting half a dozen countries or more.

Creative Rebirth – with an established routine back at home, it’s easy to find yourself caught up in the everyday busyness of things. Whether your job depends on creativity or if you just want to take a “time out” to re-evaluate where you are and set the direction for the next few years, putting yourself in a brand new context can have a dramatic impact. It goes beyond the impact you could get from a regular vacation. It’s not simply about giving your body a rest, but rather having the opportunity to be exposed to a new set of ideas, perspectives and people.

New Friends Around The World - last, but certainly not least, when you’re living somewhere for an extended period of time, you actually have an opportunity to make friends all over the world. There is a reason why many Peace Corps volunteers, who often spend 2 years on their placement, often say that the friendships they make out there become life long. You may not get to see them on a daily basis when you return back home, but you will always have a friendly face happy to see you in all corners of the world.

—

“… “The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one’s own country as a foreign land… ”
- G. K. Chesterton

If you ask somebody as to what are the main reasons they are not pursuing some of the things they want to do, the answer is often the same: “there is just not enough time in the day.”

There’s certainly a limited number of hours in the day, but you can’t help but notice that some people just manage to get done so much accomplished with their time while others seem to never be able to catch up with themselves. Considering that we’re all working with the same 24 hours in the day, something else must be going on.

I recently found myself in the latter camp of people – the ones that are constantly trying to catch up with themselves. With all of the demands of work, much of the time was spent simply reacting to whatever was thrown at me. This was not particularly productive or efficient.

Moreover, I’ve put together a number of goals that I wanted to accomplish this year and beyond, but quickly realized that under the current circumstances, they were not likely to realize themselves unless a serious adjustment was made in the daily routine. The choices essentially varied from either “quit the job” (to free up the time) or change the schedule. I decided to try the latter.

Making the Switch

As many others working in a startup environment, I’ve gotten used to the “go to sleep late, wake up late” routine. After all, most people don’t even get to the office until 11ish because they likely stayed up late last night doing work. Unfortunately, by the time you get started, half the day is already gone and by the time you finish, it’s already too late to really do anything else productive – personally or professionally.

While reading up about different scheduling routines, I’ve come across a guy that was writing about an adjustment that he’s made a few years back when he started waking up at 4.30am every day. I’ve always thought that it was an interesting idea and heard people swear by it, but I generally liked sleep too much to actually pursue it.

This time was different, however. There was a clear fork in the road where one direction meant getting the goals accomplished, while the other meant… sleep. A few years down the line, it’d be a shame to look back at what you accomplished and see “got more sleep” at the top of the list.

August Challenge

I’ve decided to start the month off with a new routine of waking up at 5am, instead of the typical 8.30ish. To do this successfully, it was important to have a clear vision for what was going to be done with the extra time in the morning.

After looking at my personal goals for the year, there were a couple of them in particular that seemed like a good fit for the early mornings. These specific goals were:

- get more exercise and stay in shape,
- read at least 26 books per year (1 every 2 weeks),
- start writing on the blog at least twice per week;
- improve productivity and focus with work.

After reviewing them, I saw down and put together a rough outline of how the first 5 hours of the morning would be spent. It looks something like this:

5.00am – Wake up and stretch.
5.20am – Go for a 40 minute run (or other form of exercise).
6.00am – Shower, get ready.
6.25am – Write on the blog.
7.15am – Get breakfast and read.
8.00am – Plan out the day
8.20am – Do one major task – Personal or Work-related – before heading to the office.
9.45am – Head to work

As a result, by the time I get to work at 10am, I was able to complete several of my personal targets and handle one major work-related priority. The best part is that I also feel refreshed and have a clear vision for how the rest of the day will play out, which makes it much easier to deal with whatever gets thrown at you at the office.

8 Tips on How to Wake Up Earlier

Adjusting your schedule to start waking up 3+ hours earlier isn’t always easy. However, the following strategies definitely helped me to make the switch. It will help you as well.

- Have a very clear plan on what you want to do in the morning. It’s only worth waking this early if you have something very specific that you want to accomplish during the extra hours. It will help you stay motivated and productive. I’ve put together a specific plan on what I want to do from 5am until 9.45am (when I start heading to work), broken down in almost 30 minute intervals. You can certainly adjust it as you go along, but do have a plan to start.

- Have pleasurable and rewarding activities built in. While this is supposed to be a productive time, there is nothing wrong with adding some pleasurable activities in the middle. For me, it’s the opportunity to do some relaxing reading and have the time to go and get a good, delicious breakfast at a local cafe. Previously, I had time for neither and always regretted it. Now, this gives me something to look forward to when the alarm rings.

- Don’t let yourself slip. We are all too familiar with the little voice in the back of our heads that tries to convince us to sleep in for another 10 minutes after the alarm rings. After all, it’s only 10 minutes – we’ll still have plenty of time when we get up. Just don’t. Don’t negotiate with yourself. Get up, go to the bathroom to wash up, drink something – and within 5 minutes you won’t want to go back to sleep.

- Plan to go to sleep earlier. Waking up at 5am isn’t going to be terribly productive if you continue to go to sleep at 12-1am. Unless you’re one of the few rare people that can function perfectly well with 4-5 hours of sleep, it won’t do you much good if you’re feeling tired and sleepy the rest of the day. While the sleeping needs vary for all people, you do need to make an adjustment and go to sleep earlier. This is probably the hardest part as it oftentimes involves changing plans with other people, who aren’t on the same schedule as you.

- Make a bet with somebody else to keep yourself straight. The day I decided to do this, I went ahead and made a bet with a couple of my close friends. I told them that I’ll be able to do this for at least 26 days out of the first month – or otherwise, I’ll lose a chunk of money to them. This adds a big personal motivator as every time you don’t wake up on time, you have a risk of losing cash… and even more importantly, losing face with the friends. For me, this becomes a whole new challenge once I let other people know about it.

- Do something good for yourself. As some of the most productive time of the day, this is the perfect opportunity to get some exercise in. Doing so will set the tone for the rest of the day, make you feel amazing, and will definitely be a good use of your time. If the weather is good, do something outside. If not, go to the gym – most of them open pretty early too.

- Enjoy the start of the new day. Seeing a new day begin and observing the sunrise is probably one of the biggest perks and luxuries of the new routine. Not only it’s really amazing to be able to see the world awake for a new day, but it also makes you feel very privileged to be one of the few to see it. I make the point of writing for the blog in the morning while sitting outside on the porch. Absolutely worth it!

- Eat breakfast. This may seem insignificant, but as a result of waking up early, you can actually have time to eat a decent, unrushed breakfast. Do it at home, go to a cafe – but sit down for 30 minutes and take your time. It’s such a nice change from just grabbing something from the fridge or from elsewhere and just munching it down on the run.

Good luck!