"If I left speaking to a client on the other side of the world until normal UK business hours, there’s a good chance their office has closed for the day. He explains that his commitment to early rising also helps his business. I can catch up and respond to emails straight away and deal with any urgent phone calls. Everything is quiet and peaceful so I have no distractions. I put together a to-do list and set myself targets for the day ahead. He cites many benefits of getting up early: "I’m fresh, alert and brimming with ideas. For James Constantinou, CEO of Prestige Pawnbrokers, his alarm goes off at 4.45am and he might snooze until 5am. Not everyone who gets up early is a CEO with staff on hand to look after their every mood.
This quiet is perfect for writing the report that always gets put off without the distraction of social media or email. There is a kind of peace that exists before 7am, before the nation’s alarm clocks have gone off. Others want to get a headstart on the day. But there are plenty of people who do set their alarms early and who try to seize the day. It can be easy for people who aren’t CEOs of multi-million pound companies to say "well yes, if I was chauffeured to work like Tim Armstrong of AOL I’d also be more productive and be able to wake up early with no stress". Venture capitalist Brad Feld wakes at 5am, makes coffee, and then feeds the dog before checking his RSS feeds and email. According to a survey conducted by Fleximize, a UK revenue-based finance provider, Arnold Schwarzenegger sets his alarm to 5am, reads the news and then uses his iPad to check his email.
Other early risers include Michelle Obama who works out before doing emails and Anna Wintour, who wakes at 5am and plays tennis at New York’s Midtown tennis club. Few appear to make time for a leisurely breakfast or a crossword. While many CEOs tend to rise a little later - between 5am and 6am, almost all incorporate some kind of exercise and email checking. Who are you kidding?Īpple's Tim Cook is a notable and extreme example - reportedly rising at 3.45am to answer emails before heading to the gym at 4.30am. Any earlier and it’s really impossible to justify it as the morning. So, an early start counts as anything from 3.30am to 5.45am. They had emails to answer and the earlier that was done the better.
There was no snoozing and no lazing around thinking about the day. Interviews conducted by The Guardian in 2013 found that all of the successful CEOs got out of bed immediately. A study by the University of Westminster found that people who wake up early (between 5.22am and 7.21am) have higher levels of a stress hormone than those who have a leisurely morning, but a dawn wake-up is also when most CEOs jump out of bed. The average Briton sets their alarm for 6.47am, but studies show that most people snooze their alarm for another 25 minutes before actually getting out of bed. Sayings such as ‘the early bird catches the worm’ suggest that success comes to those who set their alarms earlier than others, but how much truth is there in that? Do people who sleep in really achieve less than those who set their alarms at times some would say is the middle of the night? And should you sack off your lie-in and start getting up early? While the rest of the world sleeps, a select few are rising.
0 kommentar(er)
