Becoming a Morning Person For a More Meaningful Life
ST52: Getting buy-in for your idea, climate art, listening better and more
👋 Happy weekend y’all!
Welcome to all new subscribers. I’m deeply grateful that you decided to make space for this dinky publication in your inboxes (and lives). Thank you! Here’s what’s in this week’s issue:
One — How changing my alarm clock gave my life more meaning
Two — Seven Things on getting buy-in for your idea, climate art, listening better and more
If you’ve not done so yet, sign up! It’s free, takes zero effort, and you can leave anytime. Every few weeks, I’ll send you seven things I’ve found worth sharing as well as a personal story.
1. Becoming a Morning Person
It’s been a few weeks since I began experimenting with the advice provided by the book Make Time, which is filled with tactics for spending your time in more meaningful ways. This means enough time has passed for me to understand which changes in my behaviour persist and achieve the glorious status of a new habit. There are a couple, but the singularly most life-altering one has been becoming a morning person.
In the olden days, I’d roll out of bed no earlier than I had to in order to perform urgent chores and go to work in what will soon become my daughter’s nursery. After a day of work and more chores in the evenings, I’d be too exhausted to do anything active. Then I’d ‘wind down’ with whatever the algorithms of YouTube and Netflix decided for me to watch. To make things worse, I’d frequently indulge in unhealthy snacking while doing so. I often went to bed with the sour taste of knowing I’d squandered some of my limited time on Earth and damaged my body. Not a great note to end a day on.
The briefest of looks at national TV watching habits reveals I was not alone. The average person in the US is expected to watch more than three hours of TV a day this year, with British viewers reaching similar numbers. That’s 6.5 weeks of continuous viewing time per year. And this is just TV not including the use of streaming services. You’d be wrong to assume the pandemic is at fault. In 2019 this number was 14% higher still. Saddest of all, since habits brush off to the next generation, the average British 3-4-year-old child spent 12.7 hours per week in front of the telly in 2019, which roughly translates to one month of continuous watching per year.
Since nobody actually is average, you might be wondering how you are faring? You can upload your Netflix viewing history to this tool to find out. On the YouTube mobile app, you are only two taps away from seeing your current week’s viewing stats (it’s on the same screen that lets you set viewing limits and bedtime reminders).
Above: YouTube’s Time Watched feature
I had already cancelled my streaming subscriptions and swapped the black box for a practically invisible projector. Armed with all this information, though, I made one more change that would all but wipe out my mindless screen time and give me a way to spend my days more deliberately. I set my alarm clock to two hours earlier. Groundbreaking, I know, but exceedingly effective. Naturally, these two hours have to come from somewhere. I love sleeping and would never compromise on it. At the time when I used to plump onto the couch, remote in my hand, I now simply go to sleep instead.
Above: Changing my wake schedule to make meaningful time in the mornings
Before my work day begins, I have one to two hours that are mine. When the rest of the family is still asleep I do what I please, writing this newsletter or making a photo book about our last holiday, for example. It’s not necessarily productive time, though. I don’t want these precious hours to merely add to the daily churn. Some days I wake up early just to sip coffee and read a magazine in quiet or to go for an extended walk with Bao Bao. The point is not to spend this time in ways one might deem useful but instead to be intentional with it and enjoy myself rather than defaulting to mind-numbing Netflix and munch.
It doesn’t always work, of course. Sometimes, infants wake before you want them to. One day last week, a rodent had chewed through our external broadband cable, shutting down our internet connection and making me spend the morning on an urgent repair. For the most part, though, my days now start and end as I intend them to: on a high.
2. Seven Things I thought were worth sharing
Career: Practical steps to get buy-in for your idea from your boss or client
Web / Sustainability: Heartbeat of the Earth is a series of online artworks interpreting scientific climate data. The making-of of photographs visualising the retreat of glaciers particularly stood out to me.
Creator Spotlight: Nhung Lê creates colourful illustrations of women in a broad variety of scenarios. Browse her website and follow her on Instagram.
Tools: Configure your own background noise with noises.online
Book: Many problems in life can be led back to someone not having listened properly. Listen Like You Mean It is a guide to improving your listening skills and improving your relationships as a result.
Art: Heather Benning turned an abandoned farmhouse into a dollhouse and then burned it down
Watch: Sound effects designers are the oft unsung heroes of film. Learn what goes into making the most iconic sounds you’ll have heard in this 15 minute behind-the-scenes at Skywalker Sound.