Last night I went for dinner with a girl friend and talked amongst other things about attitudes to life, work and how both of us seem to be in the office before anyone else.
There are two reasons why I come in early. Firstly, I like the quietness in the mornings before the office is filling up. Secondly, when there’s a lot to get done it provides some extra time to get things done before all the meetings begin. During the last month and a bit I’ve been in between 7am and 9am, the former on days that have had a deadline and the latter on days after the deadline. On those days I’ve also slept a bit longer.
The side effect of coming in early is that I don’t get to do my morning runs, or get an hour of work on my own things done before I go to the office. Since the primary reason for me to go in early is that the day is going to be busy the day itself ends up being busy from start to finish so there is even less time during to get some of my own things in. And when I come home in the evening I’m tired and only have a couple of hours before bed time. After some time, like now, the frustration of neither getting my runs or my own things done is piling up, just like I wrote about yesterday. But the thing is, no one is asking me to come in early. I’m the one doing it and so I can change it.
The part I like about early mornings is not being in the office per se. It’s the quiet time before the day wakes up. It’s going for a run or rollerblading in the park before most people are up. It’s sitting with my cup of coffee after a nice shower, read, work and tick of things on my list. To start the day with some me time and feel like I’ve already achieved something. And since it does me no good, doesn’t mean I can leave the office earlier but just adds hours to my work day, I’m going reclaiming my mornings to start the day the way I love it to start and turn up for when everyone else turns up. No sooner. No later.
Tomorrow – Day 183 | Week 26 summary
Image source: www.flickr.com/photos/benetton/3697763962
