A few months ago, I began to take notice of my morning routine. Specifically my waking up routine. Morning after morning, I observed myself reaching for my cell phone with one eye still closed and the other still bleary eyed. Check texts, check voicemail, check email. That was the pattern. It took all of 3-5 minutes and by the end of the cell phone check, I was somewhat awake and headed for the next phase of my morning.
It never dawned on me that this was good or bad, or the right or wrong way to wake up. It’s just what I naturally did. After reading many different articles and different blogs about cell phone culture, I realized maybe this is not so natural. A few of my favorite bloggers have been posting about this topic as well. Check out this great Rowdy Kittens Blog post on cell phones.
Maybe I am so over-stimulated by being constantly “plugged in” that reaching for my phone first thing in the morning was like a fix. Did I really need to check my email? Was there ever anything of dire importance that I had to be aware of first thing after waking up? The answer is no. Was I neglecting to wake my body up gently and sweetly? The answer is yes. I know for other people this may not be the case, but for right now in my life, there is no urgency to check my email before checking in on myself first.
What do we all think of this? Let’s get a discussion going, I am ever so curious! Maybe some people disagree and I would love to hear everyones’ thoughts and opinions.
My 7 day challenge is officially beginning tomorrow, Tuesday september 13th. Over the next 7 days I will observe and discover how it feels to not check my emails first thing in the morning. I will also see how long I can last without checking my email and see if maybe there are specific triggers that set off the urge to check in. This will all be done with no judgements on myself, there is no failure here! I simply want to learn how to set myself and everyone up to have the best day possible.
Are you in?
[...] This post is a wrap up and update for the No Email Wake Up Challenge. [...]
This is hard one for me. I totally agree that checking email first thing in the morning probably isn’t the best way to wake up…forcing yourself to immediately dive right in to the days chaos basically. With regards to myself & for work related reasons, I do feel as though I need to check it soon after I wake up–Juuuuust to be sure someone hasn’t sent me an urgent message I am expected to respond to…..I wish this wasn’t the case, but for now with the way I work, i think it is, though perhaps it could wait maybe 20 minutes, just hard to accept that indeed it can wait. With regards to facebook however, i definitely DO NOT need to be checking it early in the morning, truly no reason to check it often for that matter, yet i find myself signing on to facebook early in my day & wasting time away scrolling through aspects of peoples lives i honestly do not need to know. This of course can cause me to have unneccessary thoughts about things that i shouldn’t care about, most definitely not spend my precious mind space on (now this all isnt to say i don’t care about my friends & what’s happening with them, but if it’s somoene who i need to know something about, chances are, i know it from real face time…). So I am in for this challenge, but am tweaking it…for me, i will see if i can avoid my facebook morning check in & see how it all unfolds.
Eli,
Love the challenge with the Facebook tweak!
I have heard this time and time again from Face-bookers. I am not immune to this. I have never registered for Facebook but I can easily waste over an hour on the Internet with my head in a fog.
I like what you said about how maybe checking your email can wait for 20 minutes. That’s exactly what I am putting out there. Sending a question out into the universe that perhaps what we think we MUST do right now, actually can wait until we check in with ourselves. I feel as though I can give more of myself to my day and to others if I first take care of and check in with me.
Good luck on the Facebook challenge and let me know how it goes!