my perfect morning

welcome to introspection ft. harsehaj! ⭐️ i’m harsehaj, an 18 y/o always up to something in social good x tech.

this publication is a place for me to reflect on a new topic daily, and send it to your inbox. if you’re new here, sign up to tune in! you reading this is keeping me accountable, so thank you for that. as a treat, i drop cool resources/opportunities at the end. 💌 

btw, feel free to reply with topic ideas you want me to write about for future posts.

onto today’s topic: my perfect morning ☀️

i’ve tried it all.

i tried out waking up at 5am for 3 months straight. i’ve tried going on runs at 6am. i’ve tried prepping smoothies the night before.

and none of the above stuck. so, what was the point?

if i gained one thing, it was the value of trial and error. when it comes to learning the ways you work best, you’re never going to just know it. you have to test it out.

it took me a solid 2 years before understanding what my perfect morning looks like so i can get work done, but also enjoy my day. both are very important!

basically, don’t knock it until you try it. i thought waking up at 5am was the right move for me since i was able to do it, but then i realized i wasn’t really doing anything with that morning block. i was stretching work that could be done in 30 mins to 3 hours in the mornings.

my perfect morning ingredient #1: don’t try grinding out high-focus work at the crack of dawn ..

so far, waking up at 8am seems to be pretty optimal. i’m refreshed, it’s early enough to have a few hours to myself, and it’s easy to regulate when to go to sleep. midnight is easy to justify hitting the bed for a good 8 hours of sleep. also, if i have a meeting, i try scheduling it for 9-10am so i have no choice but to get up and get ready (i’m kinda evil to myself, but it works!).

at one point i started going on runs at 6am. i wanted to exercise, but exercise alone wasn’t enough motivation to get me out of bed that early. let’s be fr.

i powered through for 2 weeks, but realized i was just exhausted and disoriented for the rest of the day. i also learned that i thrive under sunlight — the dark skies at 6 am were not motivating at all.

my perfect morning ingredient #2: save the exercise for the afternoon.

when i used to wake up at 5 am, i would block out my mornings for working on heavy critical-thinking & high focus projects. yeah, that sucked. i don’t have enough “happy points” from the day to do that so early.

my perfect morning ingredient #3: energizing work block in the morning after eating a nice breakfast: having meetings/calls, replying to emails, content creation etc.

this kind of work takes less time, so i’m able to get through a lot of smaller, fun tasks which energizes me. that’s not to say my bigger projects aren’t fun — i just need more energy and focus for them. by this point it’s the afternoon and my morning is done!

tl;dr my perfect morning:

1. wake up @ 8

2. read for an hour

3. get ready & eat a balanced breakfast outside

4. energizing work block for ~2-3 hours

for me, it’s perfect!

cool finds of the day 🔍️