But, the second mouse gets the cheese!
The saying “the early bird gets the worm” is a cliché, but I have found some less obvious benefits to getting up and starting work at the crack of dawn.
Being your own boss is something of a misnomer. Your friends will envy the freedom you must enjoy and wax lyrical about the tyrannical dictatorship they are exposed to daily as part of their employ.
Unfortunately, being your own boss isn’t the carefree pleasure cruise that many people believe it is. Being your own boss is great, but the fact is that I actually have numerous bosses. Each and every one of my clients is my boss, they pay my wages, and for the most part, they call the shots.
While, in theory, I can set my own schedule for about 12 hours every day, my clients expect to be able to pick up the phone or send an email and get a prompt response.
I’m usually always happy to facilitate my client’s requests in a timely manner. Still, even little amends, fixes, and additions can be disruptive to any scheduled work I’m doing that day.
Be the Early Bird
I’ve been an early bird for some years now. Obviously, getting an early start gives you more hours in the day to get work done, but there are two other benefits:
Nobody expects anything from you at 5 am!
I will rarely receive an email from a client before 7 am and even rarer that I will receive a phone call. As a result, from about 5 am to 8 am, I have a three-hour window of unbridled, uninterrupted productivity.
It looks pretty impressive… because it is
Many of my clients enjoy burning the midnight oil. I go through my emails and often action their contents before 6 am. When the client starts work circa 8 am, it looks good when they see that you’ve already completed their request several hours previous.
The same thing applies to working weekends. Putting in time outside of working or sociable hours allows me to make that time my own and increase productivity.
