Why I write in the morning

When Alyssa asked me to do a collab post, I said YES! It didn’t matter what the topic was. It made me feel like an actual writer and not just some guy that writes fluffies into his diary. That was Saturday. So I waited until now, Monday morning 8 a.m., 20 minutes after I wake up. Why do I express my thoughts in written words in the morning?

The truth is, it’s beacuse I feel like I have to. Writing is more of a chore for me to improve my life skills for when I need it. That’s why I made it a part of my daily routine. For every weekday, I will write 500 words of prose; there will be no Youtube/Facebook/Reddit until it is done. Wow, having it written down makes me feel like some sort of sadist. It’s like a parent disallowing dessert until the vegetables are eaten.

It reminds me of a story when I was 7: my mother asked my older brother, “If you had one good tasting candy and one ok tasting candy, which one would you eat first?”

My brother answered, “The good one”.

“Why?”

“Because if I eat the ok candy first then i will lose the appetite for the good one.”

Makes sense. Then she asked me the same question.

I answered “The good one first”, followed by “Because if I don’t eat the good candy when I have the chance then my brother would take it while I eat the ok candy.”

From that moment on, I’ve preferred doing the better, more important parts of life at the start of the day.

It feels good to have taken off a big part of my weekday chores from my list. I even use Momentun for Chrome to make a note of what topic I will write about. It even puts a little rounded box beside the to-do item. Whenever I open a new tab, my hand instinctively types YouTube or Reddit. But as I type, Momentum will remind me of the note I made myself earlier and linger on my mind while I watch videos. It feels like I’m cheating myself, so I stop and get back to writing.

Morning is when I have flexible time. I wake up at 7:40am and I have about an hour and half to do writing, showering, and eating. Unlike a workout where I feel like I have to finish the exercises, writing benefits from having thoughts in point form for me to go over later. That also means I can use the dead time during the day to think about my topics and finish the topic as the day winds down later. I have zero excuses to not write, unless I was crazy busy enough to not have any time for the distractions anyway.

After I’ve written, I have rest of the day to do whatever, knowing that day wasn’t a do-nothing day. And when I get a job that requires me to show up early in the morning, I will wake up earlier to make it happen. A part of my life’s goals beyond simply being content is to leave the world smarter than how I found it. And that’s more imporant than a job. So I do the more important thing first.