This past Sunday, more than 100 readers decided to try waking up early for the next 5 days. Over the course of the week we heard from many of them as they shared their triumphs and failures through comments and posts on their blogs.
One of the things that most impressed me about this entire week was the amazing amount of support and kindness you showed to each other. You might have been tempted to be snarky and short with each other, but you never were. You were there for each other this week and that gives me hope for the future of online interactions in general, not just the cool things we’ll be doing here at Lifehack. Thank you!
You can see each of the week’s articles here:
- Lifehack Challenge: Become an early riser in 5 days
- 5 Tips For Becoming An Early Riser
- Do you have a morning ritual?
- 9 Tips for better sleep
- Do you have a strange sleep habit?
This is it. The final day! Did you make it through all 5 mornings? How has your perspective on morning productivity changed as a result of this challenge? Will you continue waking early or was there not enough value in the schedule change to warrant continuation?
Do you have an idea for the next 5-day challenge?
I look forward to reading your thoughts! Also, if you’re planning on continuing the challenge for a few more days on your own blog, please let me know so I can link to it here? There are some late-arrivals to the challenge that would benefit from the continued support of daily posts. Thanks!
I got sick mid-week and couldn’t continue past Wednesday, though I did appreciate waking at 5AM two mornings :) A lot got done! I will do it again, but probably set the alarm for 5:30AM instead. Thanks for the challenge.
I didn’t officially participate, but I was waking up earlier. My usual routine is crazy with me sometimes waking up in the afternoon (I’m a freelance writer) so I got a lot done everyday even if I just woke up at 10 AM. I would love to see an exercise challenge, or healthy eating.
Total fail. Did not make one morning at all this week. Waking up early is easy since I never get a full night of sleep anyway… it’s the getting up part.
I’ve started thinking about trying polyphasic sleeping (specifically a 2 nap everyman schedule). What the hell, I wake up in the middle of the night anyway!
The Early Riser Challenge was the best thing that I”ve done in a while. I was very successful and had fun participating. There are a lot of good people in the world and it was a positive experience meeting some here. The Early Riser Challenge was like a gift…so thank you! I’ll be sure to pass on your blog to others.
Have a great day!
I didn’t get up early this morning, but that was a deliberate choice and I feel good about it. I made the choice late yesterday afternoon. There was a social gathering last night at the bar and I wanted to go, and I made the choice to get enough sleep after going to the over getting up early and being worthless all day.
But, I learned a lot about myself in this and I will probably start getting up earlier most of the time from now on.
Day 3 for me and success! A very productive and relaxing morning it was, too. I’ve found great value in this challenge, Seth, thank you! I’ll definitely continue past the 5 days. :)
I got 4 days successfully waking at 7:30am or earlier. Only Thursday, I needed to recoup all my lost hours but only slept 8 hours.
Overall, it was a great doing this part of a group. I definitely wouldn’t have been able to do it by myself without having others holding me accountable (even if it’s an invisible gaze). I’m shooting to wake for 7am instead, but we’ll see whether that works out.
Four out of five days are done. I consider it a big success and will continue this onto the next week. I’ve heard somewhere it takes a month to establish a new habit, so a few more weeks and rising early will be much easier hopefully:) thanks again for the challenge! I’m looking forward to a new challenge! Maybe it could be something on time management?
This would be a tough one for me. Even though I am a late comer I am going to give it a try.
Another idea for a challenge could be 5 days without complaining. Very tough as well, but very rewarding.
I failed every morning to get out of bed at 5:30am, but I managed to get out of bed earlier than I did any day last week! I didn’t meet my goal, but I still count it as a success! I managed to have my morning time (drinking coffee, reading e-mail, catching up on my DVR backlog) while still getting to work on time, which for me is a big effen deal! This challenge helped me realize that, in order to get up early, I have to go to bed early, and it helped me set that boundary with myself every night. I’m definitely going to continue along this tack.
For the next challenge, I would like to see another time management skill/task. How about create a week’s menu to cook your own dinner and pack the leftovers for lunch?
I managed to wake up every day at 6:45am, but that’s only the technicality of Wednesday is counted, ha. [I still woke up on time, it's just that I dozed off for a 2 hour nap half an hour later.]
While I agree having the spare time in the morning is quite awesome, the challenge was beset by not being able to fall asleep early enough the night before – leaving me with less than usual sleep hours to run on.
Long story short – I’d wake up more early if I didn’t have troubles sleeping. Back to sleeping in on MWF, I suppose.
Also, best of luck to the late-arrivals to the challenge.
I managed to get up at 7am every morning. On Friday, for some reason, the alarm on my phone didn’t go off at 6:30 like it was supposed to, but somehow I managed to wake up at 6:56 anyway!
I’m going to try and do 7am starts next week as well, and then perhaps I might even try for 6am once daylight savings ends and it’s a bit lighter in the mornings.
I made it 4/5 days. By Friday, I was soooo exhausted. I was very tired when the alarm went off but once I got out of bed and going, I felt good. I am not sure if I will try to get up that time everyday, but it did help me appreciate how much more I can do in one day!
I almost made my goal. I wanted to get up at seven everyday, but I ended up having an paper due that I thought was only five pages. I found out Wednesday night that it was actually a 12 page paper. Needless to say I pretty much pulled an all night and got it done. But I slept in today! (Till 8:30 anyway)
I made it! I even got up early today, Saturday, which was not part of the challenge (it also wasn’t intentional – I forgot to turn my alarm off). I am thinking about extending it into next week as well. I got quite a bit done during my early morning hours.
I got up at 7:30 on Monday, but abjectly failed to get up early the rest of the week. I think a real challenge for me would be to go to bed early for a week.
i failed every single day.. oh wait did i say fail? i meant enjoyed sleeping :)
My job sees me working until 11 or 12 at night 4 nights a week so this is something I have been struggling with for a long time (>5 years).
I did go to bed earlier every night compared to last week and I managed to wake up early for 2 days.
How about a 5 day challenge on how to change your job? ;)
The challenge was a great start to a new morning habits. I think the fact that you get more time for yourself, and wake up properly before heading to work is more important than actually waking up earlier than normal. Relaxed pace allows you to use your energy efficiently!
Thank you for the challenge!
[...] The 5-day-wakeup-challenge is now over. Even though I only got my wakeup time to 20 minutes earlier (06:00), I’m very pleased with the results. You can see my report from the week here. Here are my conclusions: [...]
Like Lee, I got wicked sick on Sunday so I was a bust out of the gate. Wednesday and Thursday I was able to only manage “the regular time” and wouldn’t you know, I caught a second cold for Friday.
I’m with Terry – five days – zero complaints. Americans in general are known throughout the world for complaining about everything. Would be a nice trend to kick. Kudos Terry. Great Idea!
Hi. I think too a real challenge for me would be to go to bed early for a week.
Thank you for the challenge!
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[...] that Early Riser Challenge? That hasn’t been working out so well for me. I really do like the extra time in my day [...]
[...] you a morning person or an evening person? Many people nowadays give in to the trend of Early Rising (here are some tips on how to get up early, if you want to give it a try). But most importantly, if [...]
it would be really hard for me
The next challenge could be about going to bed early. I think that if you can go to bed early, you can become an early riser faster.
realy super article