This is a very simple thing, that can restructure your day with a deep impact: Change your sleep habits. Don’t go to bed too late. And get up early. I always have a souvereign feeling, when I can make it not to get seduced by my snooze button. Here are my Top 3 early bird stories, that made my day:
1) Florence, Italy. Summer. It’s so hot you just want to stay in air conditioned museums. And the town is packed with tourists, there was a special cathedral with a special golden gate, that I just know from pictures, because there were always hundreds of tourists blocking the view. One day I got up before dawn and had a run through the old town. There were no people in the streets and in the squares. There were a few public workers out there cleaning the uneven sidewalks. And after one hour running I had a break in a hotel enjoying my first italian espresso of the day, trying to read the italian headlines in the figaro and looking out of big pathetic windows watching Florence getting awake. Before seven I snuggled under the blanket to my girl in our hotel and she yawned good morning with tiny eyes and I was thinking: Yes, indeed, that was a good morning.
2) When I used to live at my mother’s place as a child I remember the flock of cooing pigeons flying to our balcony every morning at seven AM. This was an everyday ritual. My mother used to feed them on our balcony with rice. Later she told me that this is what she does after meditating one hour. Probably she got up at 5:45 to have a tea to make some exercises and then starting to sit on the orange meditation rug from 6 to 7. I once tried and sat with her, but I just fell asleep. Still today I can’t achieve to keep my thoughts out of my mind, that was the very first time that someone told me that it might be good to get up early.
3) My son is three months old. He wakes up at 5 in the morning. The whole night my wife (yes thats the girl who whispered good morning to me in florence) and I take over at 6 and carry him in my blue baby sling and then have a walk through the Bergmann Kiez. There is only one Coffee Shop open when Berlin dawns. It’s an inconsiderable spot called Coffee Cult. At 7 there are always the same persons coming. A skinny white haired old man with a beret who takes notes from the Süddeutsche Zeitung, a mother with red hair and a winning smile and a man with glasses. The bartender is turkish and is so super friendly that I started to enjoy starting my day at Coffee Cult. I love the newspapers there and the magazines. My favorite place is the edge from the brown upholstered bench because there is the socket for my notebook. I often summarizes my thoughts and try to bring them compressed to one idea. And when the morning light grazes the stucco facades of the Schenkendorfstrasse, I know its time to go back home, because then it’s probably 8:30 and little Henri will be hungry for milk, and I will be hungry for the day.
I enjoy getting up at dawn. And I am not wondering that even american author and blogger Leo Babauta (America’s most famous Top 25 Blogger) described that getting up early is one of the most powerful habits, that can changes your life.