Productivity Tips – Inner Conflict – Should You Get Up Yet or Stay in Bed?

Early Riser or Night Owl?

I’ve always viewed it as a positive that I don’t need much sleep because when I ran a 24/7 tourist accommodation business, I’d often have to get up out of my warm, cosy bed and drive to the airport to collect a new arrival, so survival necessity created the best of productivity tips!

The fact that my business had a bar also meant that I became a night owl. You know how some folk are ‘morning people’, always up, bright and breezy, doing their yoga or out for a morning walk. Well, that ain’t me!

I’m normally one of those ‘late night people’, who might be tired, but suddenly gets a second wind and can be ultra-productive in the wee hours.

My Rude Awakening

The reason I’m writing about this today though is that I was unusually awakened by what I can only presume was some kind of wild, nocturnal creature, and we get a few of them up in the beautiful Perth Hills, that was making a weird noise. Jo and I both woke up, saying WTF was that? It sounded a bit like a child calling out. Maybe it was – sound travels a long way when the night air is so still.

Anyway, whatever it was made just enough noise to wake us both up before stopping as rapidly as it had begun.

After over twelve years together, Jo knows my routines pretty well. Even though I’m a night person, I’m one of those people who, once awakened, usually struggles to switch my brain back off and go back to sleep. She said, “You should get up and do some work because then you can give Troy his 5am meds” My stepson has a rare, genetic epilepsy condition and takes a lot of medication, both day and night.

Sure enough, even though it was a dark and cold wintery night and even though the duvet was all warm and snuggly, I was mentally screwed!

I started thinking about the tasks I wanted to catch up on, things I wanted to implement in my businesses, plus stuff I didn’t want to do, but need to do regardless.

Internal Conflict Resolved

So, maybe you guessed it? I did the old Mel Robbins’ trick of counting down 5,4,3,2,1 – inner conflict resolved and I arose from my cosiness to get up into the night. Socks and jumper on, kettle on, cup of coffee and through to the home office to get on my PC.

But here’s the magical result. From 3.30 am onwards, I got stuck into doing stuff. I ploughed through emails, paid my superannuation, crossed off tasks on my Nimble CRM, updated cleaning projects, filed things, watched a webinar and made useful notes and gave Troy his meds. Not only that, but I also took a moment to get up and walk through to the lounge to gaze upon the beauty of a new day’s arrival. I listened to the birds tweeting outside my window and I got a heap of stuff done. Life is good.

My Productivity Conclusion

It’s important that we get enough sleep. Our bodies need time to recover and re-energise. So do our minds! Let’s face it, a lack of sleep or heavily disrupted sleep is used as a torture technique.

Nevertheless, if you want to be more productive, I’d recommend that rather than lying in bed, tossing and turning because you can’t nod off again, the benefits of getting up and getting shit done are huge, but only if you set that intention. It would be just as easy to squander the time on net surfing or looking at cat pictures on Facebook, but instead, decide to ACCOMPLISH SOMETHING MEANINGFUL and get it done.

I might have a teeny Grandpa nap later on to do a quick recharge of my wrinkly old brain, but I’ll have started my day by turning a negative inconvenience into a super positive, motivational kick-start.

I’ll leave you with those thoughts as you ponder your inner conflict “Should I get up yet, or stay in bed?”

Whichever you decide, also decide to make it a great day 😊

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