5AM Club: Own Your Morning. Elevate Your Life. (one of the best parenting hacks yet!)
Before our second child was born, I started waking up at 430am every morning due to some anxiety. For a few days I just laid in bed ruminating, but by day 3, I decided to use my time and go to a 5am CrossFit class. I loved the fact that I got a work out done and was sitting at Starbucks by 615 working on a personal project before most of my peers were even awake.
Purposely waking up at 430am actually received the anxiety I was having and improved my sleep by making me get to bed earlier. I actually lost weight just by sleeping more and my nagging back pain went away almost entirely!
When our little girl was born in November, our timing changed and no one was getting enough sleep, so my 5am routine went out the window… as well as most healthy habits (no more fasting, no more early bed time, no more CrossFit. My 5am routine was a distant memory.
For the first few months our daughter was around I struggled to find a standard time to work out. My back started hurting and I started gaining some weight and losing muscle.
Somehow I came across a book called “The 5 AM Club: Own Your Morning. Elevate Your Life” by Robin Sharma. Per one of my posts, I tend to listen to a lot of books and podcasts as it allows me to digest books when I am driving or doing stuff around the house. The Audible version of this book comes with a great PDF companion.
Per BookSummaryClub.com, The three key lessons from The 5 AM Club are:
The solitude of 5 am will help your brain work at its best
To fully utilize 5 am, you need to sleep
Use the 20/20/20 formula to get the most out of your morning
Sharma’s strategy is great, and I have made it work for me in this way:
Try to get in bed by 9pm and asleep by 10pm
Wake up by 4:45am
Attend a 5am CrossFit
Journal at 605am, with Daylio and 5 Minute Journal
Grab coffee from Starbucks by 615am and work on a project, listen to a book, meditate, etc
Home by 7am to do chores/get ready for the day
I have not strictly adhered to Sharma’s 20/20/20, I do hit the 3 pockets he calls: move, reflect, grow.
This habit is still new, and I am working hard to adhere to it, watch my @dadhacksblog on Instagram and Twitter for more updates.
Summary of benefits I have experienced by “Joining” the 5am club:
find time before my day gets busy to exercise
have scheduled time to reflect
evaluate/prepare for my day
find myself putting down my phone and focusing on family time
get to bed early
All the best!
CB
