Rethinking the cult of the early riser

In today’s world of fast-paced law firms, legal entrepreneurs and high achieving solicitors, the cult of the early riser appears to be more popular than ever.

While many lawyers, due to their heavy schedules, have always liked getting to the office as early as possible, social media has put a new spotlight on waking before dawn, showing that many Hollywood celebrities, high-flying business people and fitness gurus subscribe to the club.

But for lawyers, notoriously sleep-deprived from workloads often exceeding a standard 40-hour week, experts say a super-early wakeup is not always the right way to win the day.

Jacob Keech, of Griffith University’s school of applied psychology, says the idea of getting out of bed extremely early for success has gained popularity, primarily as it is easy to grasp.

“The super early wake up offers a detailed plan that can be straight forward for people to follow, and several people have publicly shared success stories,” Keech tells LSJ.

Andrew Cominos, performance coach and principal at Brisbane-based Performance Remarkable, also points to the celebrity factor, saying that “a lot of people who are successful and influential [wake] up early and have a morning routine that sets them up.”

Celebrity cult aside, he backs getting out of bed earlier as a practical way for time-poor lawyers to get more done.

The simple fact, according to Cominos, is that for many lawyers across Australia “when you wake up early you effectively add more productive time to your day.”

“You can add this productive time arguably at the end of the day, however the reality is at the start of the day you are more fresh, have more willpower, and are typically more disciplined, so doing your routing when doing your routine when you wake up just makes a little more sense,” he adds.

A third contributor, the performance coach says, is that pre-dawn is an ideal time to do work as mental alertness is high and there are fewer family and work distractions.

“If you have ever been up at 4.00 or 4:30am in the morning, you’ll know that the world just seems more peaceful,” he says. “It’s the same late at night. The busyness of the world slows down and suddenly busy people tend to feel like they can focus on what is important.”

Academic research backs Cominos up, indicating that rising early in the morning – before 4.30am for more than 20 consecutive days – leads to better scores on cognitive tests and some verbal and spatial memory tasks. There are also studies showing that getting up early can make you eat healthier and lead to more happiness.

However, Simone Guild, a leadership coach who works with large organisations like NAB, ANZ and the Victorian government, urges caution on joining the early riser club.

Guild suspects there is “a bit of hero syndrome and ego in the mix” when it comes to the habit, citing proponents like Apple CEO Tim Cook and Virgin founder Richard Branson.

The duo are far from the only high-profile early risers. Michelle Obama is said to wake up at 4.30am before doing emails, Vogue’s Anna Wintour reportedly wakes at 5am before playing tennis, while actor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s alarm is said to go off at 5am before he reads the news and checks email. One of the more extreme examples is that of US actor Mark Wahlberg, who gets up at 2.30am for a gym workout, snacks, shower and prayer.

“Thinking you must do something because others do is the quickest way to lose touch with yourself: comparison is the thief of joy,” the Melbourne-based Guild says.

“I feel people are becoming more and more disconnected from themselves and that’s something as a leadership coach and speaker that I am personally trying to shift.”

Instead of setting the alarm clock for 5am, or even earlier, Guild advocates shifting focus from productivity to personal “alignment.”

This can take many forms such as a brief walk, journaling or meditation, and does not necessitate a super early wakeup, she says.

“People are different: we have different metabolisms, sleep patterns, diets, family commitments, may be on medication, and natural rhythms play a part as well which means that a super early wakeup is not ideal for everyone,” Guild says.

“If you just feel off, change something, reflect on the difference it makes and treat yourself like your own experiment.”

Instead of fixating on wakeup time, she advocates a focus on overall health and wellbeing, including looking at diet – an easy way to boost productivity.

Many lawyers, like millions of Australians, have unhealthy diets, which can negatively impact mood, energy levels and overall wellbeing. The situation can be even worse for lawyers who work from home where an unhealthy snack is always close to hand.

According to Guild, with diet having a key role to play in energy management, there’s little point waking up at 5am only to go through the day on high energy, low nutrition food.

“Many foods have so many preservatives that are far from beneficial and if your day is jam packed you can have a tendency to lean towards what’s easy rather than healthy,” she says.

She urges lawyers to look out for tell-tale signs of poor diet. “If you are tired all the time, have brain fog, feel depleted throughout the day and when you ‘react’ rather than respond to things. Also if you are finding it difficult to make decisions or just feel overwhelmed.”

Sheena Schuy, a business consultant specialising in burnout and anxiety, suggests lawyers ditch the early alarm and instead listen to their natural energy patterns sleep cycles.

Some people are naturally more alert in the morning, while for others it will be the afternoon or evening, and it is this “chronotype” –  a person’s natural inclination towards a specific sleep-wake pattern – that should be the guiding principle for a daily routine.

“So if you’re more of an afternoon or evening person, where you’re most alert or on point that time of the day, a super early wake up and early bed time isn’t working to your natural best strengths and therefore isn’t as effective as it would be for someone who is naturally a morning person,” Schuy, director of Brisbane-based Savasana Collective, says.

In her opinion, boosting daily success is about lawyers knowing these rhythms better.

“If you’re a morning person, then it does make sense to do your workouts, journaling or meditation before work, as you might find yourself fatigued by the end of the day to do these things,” the therapist says.

“But if you’re naturally an evening or afternoon person you might find sleeping longer, and then doing something short and quick like listening to your favourite playlist while you get ready and commute and doing your workouts, cooking, and other activities in the afternoon.

“The key point of this all is knowing how to make your day flow, and have daily practices that pull you back to yourself and out of stress, anxiety and burnout.”

Griffith University’s Keech also emphasises “broader context” in setting up morning habits. He suggests, rather than a fixed wakeup time, lawyers tailor morning routines to their days.

He says if work as a lawyer means experiencing “a lot of interruptions during business hours [and] needs to complete work which requires a lot of concentration, getting in a few hours of solid work prior to others arriving at the office might be useful.”

“Conversely, some people find it challenging to get going in the morning and may find that they aren’t very productive in the earlier hours,” he says.

Another way to think about boosting productivity, according to Performance Remarkable’s Cominos, is to focus on aims instead of daily start time.

To start off, he suggests making a list “of all the possible things you can think of that would add to your day, make you feel great, improve your mood, and increase your focus”.

Typical aims include gratitude, exercise, meditation, learning, goal setting, reflection, peace and quiet, presence, setting an intention for the day – and coffee.

“Then pick one or two easy ones and start by implementing those, not expecting them to work instantaneously,” he says. “Performance is a choice and journey. If you start small and become really consistent, and then implement more and more over time, you will end up with a powerfully strong set of habits, no matter what time of day you do them.”

“Try to have some movement for mental clarity, some learning for perspective, and some future pacing such as goal setting or gratitude for improved mood,” he adds.

Over time, hone the routine by reflecting on what is helping to spark successful days.

“The aim is not to fill your morning with activity for the sake of having a routine, but with a few simple activities that drive focus, mental clarity, better mood, [and] a healthier perspective.”

Lawyers, he accepts, are busy people with hectic work schedules to juggle alongside family duties. This can make it tough to stick to a morning routine, no matter what time it kicks off.

“It’s is a big factor that stops people from being their best self,” Cominos says. “There is always a reason they are too busy to actually take care of themselves because they are always taking care of others.”

On this point, he suggests taking pressure off getting everything done before work. Rather, focus on getting five things done over the course of the day whenever they can be fitted in.

“Consistency is the key here, because consistency will give you the compound interest that will ultimately improve your life,” he says.

“The second thing to remember is that a habit is just a repetitive action we take either for the betterment of ourselves or for the worse but people get attached to the time and place. It is important to be adaptable and, on busier, more difficult days, get the habit done, just when and where it is possible. Consistency is the key, not rigidity.”

Savasana Collective’s Schuy also backs trial and error to refine morning routine, adding that an activity like meditation can mean different things to different people.

“Meditation for some is literally sitting down and visualising and breathing, for others meditation is the act of surfing, running or even sport and being present to the moment, noticing how they feel, how their body moves, what comes up for them in the silence,” she says.

“Some people love saunas and ice baths, whereas other people just love a warm tea and a quiet 15 minutes with their favourite book uninterrupted.”

As well as de-prioritising what time the alarm clock goes off, she suggests taking the pressure down on finding the perfect morning routine.

Being too much of a perfectionist, she says, can lead to perfectionism, guilt, shame – feelings associated in the legal profession “with burnout, anxiety and self-criticism.”

“The key is finding things that regulate who you are, what your nervous system responds to – there really is no right or wrong, except what’s right or wrong for you.”