Why it pays to begin your day early

As a young girl living in the country side and working in the bustling Metropolis (imagine London the far drive to the countryside,) there are several reasons why it pays to start each day early.

I'm going to share how my morning routine looks like with you first. Just so you know how early I start my day and when I actually start working.

I don't know about you guys but for me, I need a quiet alone time to start my day. This usually happens at 1 or 2 am. I meditate on the day that passed and the day that's beginning. This is normally just deep breathing and thinking. Dark, quiet, background music playing softly. Now the good thing about this is nobody is awake yet. So you can really enjoy that quiet. I reach out to my friends abroad and respond to personal emails and messages. See, to wake up early one must sleep early and get enough rest. So any emails or messages that come in at night I respond to in the morning.

After that, I get up. I stretch. I get a light snack. I do all the hygienic stuff like shower and brush my teeth. When I'm done I prepare for the commute to work. Now when you begin your day early you can take the public commute. Chances are there is no traffic congestion yet and there is little to no chance that you will be late. I do this at 6am.

The commute without the heavy traffic is about 45 minutes on public transport, and about 30 minutes if you drive. I spend that time 15 minutes to read and 30 minutes to sleep. When I wake up I'm at my stop.

This is the first reason why it pays to start your day early:
Beginning early, clears away chances of stress.

Now if you're like me who is paid on a project basis and not an hour basis, you get to have a free schedule which means you can start and end any time you choose.

Which brings us to the second reason:
Arriving to work early lets you get ahead. You start early, you finish early.

That's very true for me. I normally finish my work early so I can leave early. And if you're studying this gives you plenty of time to get to school. This happens about 1pm.

And that's third reason:
You can spend half the day doing something you're passionate about.

In my case its fashion school. It can be something else to somebody else. You can use the extra time to spend with your family. I don't know. Whatever you feel like will be valuable to you. Take your partner out. Host a dinner. Pick up your children.  Even if you factor in the traffic at 1pm? Its not as bad as traffic at 4-8pm. You'll get to where you're going in under an hour depending on how far away it is.

To do this, there is one rule. To strike a balance. You can't keep going to midnight parties and wake up at 1am. You'll be exhausted and when you're tired you're not conditioned to work, which is stressful. So if you still party at night, this is not for you. I would suggest you get enough rest to prepare for the next day. Again, balance.

Rest is equally important to work. You can start early or late. I chose to start early and gave you my reasons.

Xo,
P

Did he value your time?

Today I sat in a coffee place for an hour unaware that banana pancakes take more than an hour to make. The reason you might ask? They bake pancakes. For thirty minutes. Each. Now I'm okay with waiting 30 minutes for really spectacular you'll-forget-your-name-and-go-crazy fluffy pancakes. But over an hour felt a bit too much.

While the waiters, crews, baristas are unapologetic and continue to gossip about local celebrities and what they wore to a screening of a low budget local film they co produced (made up that film bit) I start counting minutes. I start getting angry. I start counting what millionaires are making while I waste time waiting for three pieces of pancakes with frozen peanut butter and over ripe banana swimming in a dollop of salted soft butter. I start picturing the ifs. The phone calls I'll miss, the emails left unanswered, the meetings I'll be running late to attend. How much would that cost me? If I was a high powered rich business woman making over USD1500 a minute.

The young man who looked like he was fresh out of high school handed me my order, with a smile and a small I'm sorry. No remorse what so ever. I left briefly. As the driver drove away, I calmed the storm inside me. The problem, I thought to myself, is the mentality. The people in that establishment did not value time. The way I valued mine. I wasted less than two hours for those pancakes. Lucky I wasn't paid by the hour.

In those mundane day to day activities for the rest of our lives lie the awakening moment, the big flashy LED sign that blinks, the hard slap, or that three gold strands on a well greased ball, often times we miss if we don't pay attention. It was on that brief drive that the difference begins and ends in the mind.

It is the lack of ambition. It is the lack of urgency. It is the lack of self appreciation. Appreciation of self worth, of time, of other people's time and interest.

What makes a poor man poor is his way of thinking. The same way a rich man is rich because of his thinking. A dollar is just a dollar. To a rich man it could be the building block of a million. To a poor man it could be the difference between life and death. It could be a fraction of the cost of your lunch. It could mean a lot of things to different people. That all depends on you.

Xo,
Paula

Rest is just as important as Work

TGIF meant very little to me. It meant close yo nothing actually. Until this week. Never have I thought that I would see a working week that looked like this. Where it starts at 6am and ends at 9pm. Hustling every minute of it.

Suddenly weekends meant more to me than anything. Weekends were developed historically to promote recreational activities and motivate workers to spend money. This improved the economy a great deal.

I don't know if the struggle is coming from my recent vacation. Maybe I'm not over staying at the beach and swimming with the fishes. Maybe its really just a crazy week. And maybe we don't need sleep. So while I accumulate baggage under my eyes, and pretended I am working hard to improve company standing, other people rest.

I take calls until 11pm and maybe I have been over working. It is my father's words that I go back to when I'm in such stressful hectic situation such as work. He said, "separate work from personal life. Strike a balance between the two."

I am excited for the weekend. I expect to have a wonderful lunch with friends and sleep long hours.

I hope that you guys value rest as much as you value work. Make sure to keep the fire burning. Rest when you should. Work when you should. Stay lovely.

Xo,
Paula