There is a lot of productivity literature around the subject of time and priority management, and you will find a fair share of it here on my blog. For now, though, just one question:

Q: When is the best time to wake up?

A: 10 minutes before the alarm goes off. Why?

Well, because there is a good chance that you want to wake up before the alarm and very often we want to wake up because something important is about to happen. And therein lies the secret.

First though, this is not about waking up worried because we feel a little out of control and consequently don’t sleep well anyway. A lot of people admit to experiencing this the night before an early flight, for example.

The secret to waking up before the alarm is in making this a habit, and that habit is helped by more consciously welding our purpose to our priorities day-to-day.

In part, this is about how we engage all our being – physical, intellectual and especially, emotional – with what we hope to achieve the next day. In part it is about the questions we ask ourselves in our daily planning. In part it is about how we manage our focus, energy and engagement with what we are hoping to achieve in life and linking that explicitly with tomorrow.

It is about welding the internal invisible productivity platform that lives between our left and right ears with a robust external productivity platform built with proven principles, processes and tools that lives in our pockets and on our desks.

This is what gets me out of bed 10 minute before the alarm every day. It’s about supporting my clients in Defining Purpose, Deciding Strategy, Defending Priorities and Delivering Results.

You might also be interested in my suggestion about what to do first thing in the morning before you plant your feet on the floor.

As always, I’m keen to know what works for you.

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