Planning Your Day

What is the first thing you think of upon waking up in the morning? "Stupid alarm.... I just want to go back to sleep," "My feet are really cold," or even "I really need to go the bathroom!" sound familiar. Or how about "What the heck am I going to accomplish today??"

I have to admit that last question rarely pops into my mind in the morning. Usually it's something more trivial, like wondering what I'm going to eat for breakfast or weighing the consequences of hitting the snooze button and going back to sleep. But when it does, I feel a sense of obligation to do something worthwhile, which can be both good and bad. Time is a valuable resource, and especially during the summer, days can melt away faster than the ice cube in your drink. I just don't want to come to the end of the summer and realize I wasted an entire vacation doing nothing. So I suppose asking yourself a simple question in the morning can have its benefits. Am I going to run? Hang out with friends? Blog? Play music? Just make sure "be a total vegetable and do nothing but lie on the couch, check Facebook, eat, sleep, and flip through channels" is NOT on your to-do list.

Whether or not you actually do write out to-do lists, it's important to have an active mindset, not a reactive one throughout the day. Plan, don't watch your day go by. Today is precious. So don't hold back- it's up to you to make something of it.

Night is the New Morning

I think my inner biological clock is shifted a whole seven hours from Eastern Time. Seriously though, I've noticed for the last couple of days that I've felt the most alert and ready to do important things (like start this blog) at night, around 9 p.m. ET. I go to sleep a few hours after that not feeling very tired at all, which I find strange since I hadn't consumed any caffeine and have been pretty active during the day. Aren't people supposed to feel the most rested in the morning, after a full night's sleep? I mean, it would make sense to me. Or at least in the afternoon, when the energy consumed during breakfast starts to kick in. So why have I felt so tired in the morning and afternoons these past few days?

I guess people talk about morning larks and night owls in order to explain every person's own sleeping habits and how they approach the day. In that case I am definitely a night owl. Even when I get a full eight to ten hours of sleep, I still feel groggy and unmotivated in the morning. I'm not talking about school days, either. That's a whole other kind of pain. I'm talking about the weekends and summer days, when I literally have the whole day ahead of me to plan and get stuff done. And in the mornings I always end up crawling around the house like a slug. Except today, because I sat myself down to write post number deux. Wait, scratch that, it's already past noon. But whatever.

It probably comes down to habit. I'm sure of it. I would love to become a morning person (very well written article about that here, check it out!), but I just don't have the capacity or the self discipline to fight the urge to slap the snooze button in the morning. Those morning people who wake up at 6 a.m. sharp every single day of their lives have my total respect. And when you think about it, mornings really can be the best part of the day. Everyone else is asleep, the sun is just glancing over the horizon, the air is fresh and cool to the touch, the roads are quiet, the birds are chirping... if only I could resist the overpowering temptation to go back underneath my bed covers. But I guess I have a period of quiet alone time in my day too. It's just shifted forward seventeen hours (or backwards seven) from that golden time of 6 a.m. Yup, I've always loved that period when my parents have gone to bed and I have the whole house to myself (that includes the fridge!) The evening breeze from my open window is fantastic. I just hate the moths and other insects that are constantly bumping into my screen because they are so attracted  to the light on my desk. But all in all it's a pretty peaceful time after midnight. I guess I'll call it my new mornings.

With patterns from school weeks and then wacky weekend schedules, my sleep patterns are pretty much screwed up. I guess the only advantage to that is that I get over jetlag much more easily than say, my parents. But I don't know, I would still like to feel my best in the morning instead of walking around like a zombie for the first few hours upon awakening. I've concluded that my biological clock would fit that of Tashkent, Uzbekistan. I think I'll go start packing. Well, not until I wake up around 11 p.m. ET tonight.