The 5AM Club for high achievers? A little later won’t matter
From tech CEOs to cultural icons, early-morning routines have become ritualised for success. The key, perhaps, lies in maximising your time, your way.
Apple chief executive officer Tim Cook likes waking up before 5am, and for a spell he nailed 3.45am. He will spend an hour responding to his daily avalanche of 700 or 800 e-mails. His morning routine also involves strength exercises and a stop at Starbucks on his 7am drive to work.
Another early bird, former US first lady Michelle Obama, hits the gym every day after she rises and shines at 4.30am.
American actress-entrepreneur Gwyneth Paltrow is more esoteric. She sets the alarm for 5am, starting her day with a tongue-scrape, transcendental meditation and celery juice.
The trio are knights exemplar of the 5AM Club: high achievers and disciplined sunrisers at war with wasted mornings.
Leadership expert Robin Sharma, who wrote The 5AM Club (2018), lives by this sunny manifesto: “Own your morning, elevate your life.”
He has worked out a 20/ 20/ 20 formula for optimal mornings. The first hour is spent on 20 minutes of exercise, 20 minutes of reflection and 20 minutes of planning or learning.
Though I don’t set my alarm for 5am, I am unintentionally awake at that hour often enough to discern the appeal of an early start. With the day stretching languorously ahead, I have the luxury of time to write or work out, or do little.
A week ago, when my eyes opened at 5.05am, I remembered the 20/ 20/ 20 strategy.
First, I asked Google Home to play “soft dance music for home workouts” and Siri channelled Les Pipos by Swedish-born jazz musician Ennio Máno, along with a couple of other chill dance hits. But soon she was playing the techno remix of Fortnight by global pop superstar Taylor Swift and Canadian DJ BLOND:ISH, featuring American rapper Post Malone.
Techno, even if it releases dopamine and boosts motivation, is not a morning genre for my body or sleeping neighbours. I instructed Siri to stop, then pivoted to stretches and squats in silence. But, fine, the best intentions can unspool and the main thing is, I’d exercised.
Next, I would sit on my balcony and contemplate, journal, meditate or pray. It is never easy to sit still, so I started watering the potted plants, doing mini-chores and fixing breakfast, while summoning gratitude for my good life.
Finally, I would learn or plan. I grabbed my copy of The Straits Times and read my colleague Shawn Hoo’s interview with artist Lim Tze Peng, who is now staging a National Gallery Singapore solo exhibition at age 103.
“Art has given me longevity,” the ebullient Cultural Medallion recipient said. “There’s not a single day that I do not paint or write calligraphy.” Perfect inspiration for the day.
Wonderfully, too, in that first waking hour, I could go analogue and not reflexively look at my phone. No one expects me to respond to messages at dawn. No one is awake to judge me for disconnecting.
Unusually for me, I powered through two hours before looking at my phone at 7.15am. No emergency happened while I was phone-free. If anything really urgent happens, all of us are a phone call away, and we may have forgotten that.
After 7am, I worked in snatches. I made notes for this column, sent e-mails, planned my week. In between, there was time to finish reading the paper, light a new wild pear and freesia candle, and look at the illuminated ships on the horizon.
So much done and a whole day of unspent hours still stretches ahead.
I was reaping the benefits of a 5am start. Thinking back, on other unrushed mornings too, I have a torrent of ideas and productivity spikes.
Me-time in such moments is also important to the half-introvert in me. I love solitude and companionship in almost equal parts, and mornings are now my sanctuary after being a certified night owl most of my life.
Other mornings, I will step out for a walk in the neighbourhood. More people seem to be walking and running earlier; Singapore is getting hotter. The decade between 2013 and 2022 has been Singapore’s warmest on record, but it is still possible to start the day outdoors.
Still, I am curious about influential people who are hardly sticklers for the 5am rule. Googling around, I found that billionaire investor Elon Musk is a bit of a laggard, waking up at 7am.
Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg prefers 8am.
Singapore’s founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew slept and woke late, he revealed in an interview with The Straits Times: “I get six-and-a half, seven hours of sleep. I sleep late, I wake up late, I work late.”
Clearly, he made time for governance, family, sports, learning and everything else in his vigorous life. “My daily routine is set. I wake up, clear my e-mail, read the newspapers, do my exercises and have lunch,” he said.
“After that, I go to my office at the Istana, clear more papers and write articles or speeches. In the afternoons and evenings, I sometimes have interviews scheduled with journalists, after which I may spend an hour or two with my Chinese teachers.”
Influential people, whether they are morning larks or night owls, live fully and are paragons of productivity in their own style.
An early-bird culture brings its own gifts, as I have discovered. But each of us finds joy meeting life goals in our own rhythm.
I maximise each day anyway, plans and playtime included, so the 5AM Club lifestyle is really another tool to live well without selling out to the cult of over-productivity.
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