Why I Wake Up Before 3:30 AM Every Morning

I write this blog, at 3:59 AM, because I was far from an early riser/early sleeper (known as “advanced phase sleeper” in medical terms) for most of my life. My college schedule was almost the inverse of what it is now. I, with my friends, would easily stay awake until 3:30 AM. Likely most nights. We would eventually call it a “night,” although some of those nights were when the sun was coming up — and crash. And then get nothing done, by definition other than sleep, during the pivotal hours of the day. So being an early riser — becoming an early riser — did not come naturally, but it has had some tremendous benefits for me now, and I write to share those benefits. 

Why did my schedule change so dramatically? It started out of necessity. I became a dean during the Great Recession responsible for the employment of nearly 1,000 total law students each year, and was given other roles too — fundraising, travel, university-wide leadership duties, and so on. I found that I absolutely had to be at work by around 6:30, so I was waking up around 5 AM. Pretty standard in the professional world I imagine. Now that I run a firm of more than 30, the responsibilities add up even higher. Again, necessity. But that does not diminish my desire to have personal time, self-improvement time, etc. Those responsibilities haven’t made my desire to run in competitive races any less. Or to read any less. Or to be with people I care about any less. The pie chart of hours in the day is still the exact same circumference, and I want to allot them roughly similarly between work and personal time — or at least, if not equally proportionate, at least in a proportion of my choosing. Arnold Schwarzenegger once said, “Just sleep faster,” and while that is a great motivational sound clip, quite obviously it can’t be done.

So I sleep better. What I mean by this is that, if I go to bed at 9 PM and wake up at 3 AM — my very typical schedule — that is 6 hours of sleep and all I need (the typical adult needs 7-9, but it can vary greatly here; there are many who need less, so called “short sleepers”). What happens at 3:00 AM that is so magical or pressing it can’t wait? This is the crux of it all. I don’t wake up and meander about. Quite the opposite. I wake up and do the most annoying, tedious and stressful things before my “day” starts and before anyone else can distract me. There are no interruptions at 3:30 AM. So while I can’t sleep faster, as Arnold alluded to, I most definitely work faster in the early morning. I promise you that you will too. 

But that’s just the tip of the benefit iceberg. Because since I am working faster, I am also spending less time on my “grind” items. Which makes them less annoying because they drag out less. More importantly — most importantly — by sunrise, the things that could generally stress me out all day are done. They are out of my head. I go for a sunrise run and I am not thinking about them — I am thinking about life or my goals or people I care about. Anything BUT work. I’m liberated around this time of day. And I want to end on that notion of liberation.

I think, to some, it sounds almost romantically tough to get up this early. Jocko Willink, a former Navy SEAL and motivational speaker, is a huge proponent of early rising, and at times he cages it in these terms. He talks about it in a 1.5-minute, very worthwhile clip, and about getting the worst parts of the day out of the way before others are interrupting you here. But I include these here because it isn’t a macho thing. It is all about freedom. Which is 100% what brought me here, at my laptop, now at 4:27 AM. Yes, you are more likely to be successful if you get things done early. Yes, you are more likely to beat your competition if you get up earlier than them. Yes, others will, at times, even look up to that as cool or tough or crazy (what had me write this blog is a friend of mine, Dave Killoran, CEO of Powerscore, mentioned on a podcast — I’m not sure if in the context of cool or crazy as I haven’t heard the podcast — that I am an early riser, and I was asked about this). But none of that matters when you realize that your time on this pale blue dot is incredibly fleeting. You will wake up one morning and you will be retired. Hopefully a while thereafter, but the time will come, you will then realize that while life was full of almost endless possibilities at one point, it is no longer. All of those different pathways you could choose to go down have become, almost without realizing it, a tiny number. So what early rising for me means goes back to freedom. I am free to choose these paths, these incredible opportunities and dreams to chase, each day. Each day starting at 3:30 AM.