It's Time to Wake Up Early... Tips on Developing a Morning Routine

Free Memoir Writing Workshop Details At The End of Email

My favorite season of the year is here.

Spring.

This is when the New Year should happen. This is when the New Year used to happen until the adoption of the Gregorian Calendar.

"April Fools' Day" was created as a holiday meant to mock and ostracize those who followed a more natural and pagan tradition of celebrating the beginning of the year at the same time as the rebirth of Mother Nature.

Instead, people chose to celebrate the beginning of the year in the dead of death, I mean, winter.

The days are longer and warmer, and we all feel a little happier—at least I do.

This is the perfect time to start working on that amazing person you want to be. You can even start developing an adult hobby, including writing personal stories and if you choose the last one, I’m here to help you, too.

But spring alone doesn't solve the problem of you not having time. Well, I am going to help you develop a habit of waking up early.

For the next few posts, I will share with you some of the tricks I have used to wake up early to work on personal projects for over a decade.

But first, a story; it is a blog about storytelling anyway.

Before I knew I wanted to write about storytelling, I was still trying to figure out what I could write about. My wife told me, "Well, you know a lot about productivity; you could help people with that."

I love reading about productivity, psychology, and behavioral conditioning. In college, I minored in social psychology, which is a little more than your intro to psychology but not that much more. It was probably enough to take clients at the bar and give them terrible advice before sending them on their way.

My wife was right; I did spend a lot of time reading about these subjects, but I couldn't think of anything more boring to write about.

It just didn't get me excited. I also thought there were many great productivity gurus out there already: David Allen, Brian Tracy, Anthony Robbins, and more recently, Tim Ferriss, Leo Babauta, B.J. Foggs, and James Clear.

And honestly, once you have a few good principles down, obsessing over productivity leads to diminishing returns.

At least, that's the way I thought about it back then. But, without a better idea, I thought it was the best path for me to follow.

So I interviewed several prospective clients (aka some of my friends) and created and wrote a program called "The Morning Fix." This program aimed to develop the keystone habit of waking up early to work on passion projects.

If you have never seen this program, there is a reason for that.

Before launching, I was sidetracked into writing surreal comedy pieces, which I enjoyed a lot more. But it was a good product, and my friends experienced some success with it.

I don't want to venture into the productivity realm, but given that it is spring, I want to share some tips on creating and maintaining a morning routine with you.

Maybe you want to write more, or you want to paint more, or you just want to find the time to finally pursue a degree or training. Whatever you want to do with a little more time, I hope this helps you. Let me know if it does.

If you are thinking, "I don't even have time to do x." Let me tell you, I have a corporate job, two young daughters, a wife, and a very demanding chihuahua, and I travel for fun and work. In the more than a decade I have been doing this, I have had kids, moved cities, changed industries, changed jobs, and many more "life happens" moments.

Honestly, I believe if I can do it, you can do it.

So, look for my next emails; I will be sharing all the tricks I use to wake up early and work on my passion projects.

Tonight and every Tuesday at 8:15 PM Pacific Time, I will be hosting a free Memoir Writing Workshop.

Walk out with a draft of one of your stories. Come and ask your burning questions about writing your personal stories and essays, and have fun surrounded by supportive, like-minded writers.

Only those who join the Zoom call will be able to take part in it. Once that session is done, no one else, not even me, gets to listen to it.

[THEME] The theme for tonight is "School;" what are some memories you have about school? Are there any funny or painful anecdotes you'd like to share? Did that influence how you saw life? Did it influence what you did for your kids?

Come and learn a simple structure to tell stories and walk out of the workshop with one new story to add to your memoir.

• I will quickly show how I use my storytelling cheat sheet to draft interesting stories in minutes,

• I will guide you through the guide in a writing exercise,

• Finally, I will open the floor to questions or for anyone who wants to share the story they wrote.

Join me on Zoom!

You can save this meeting ID for the upcoming workshops.