Not everyone is up before dawn getting to the gym or working on their mindfulness practice. Some people are naturally early risers, and some of us just aren’t. My best time for a meeting is 10:00 a.m.
And you have to pay me a lot to get me to anything that starts before 9:00 a.m. Breakfast meeting? It’s my favorite meal of the day – but no, thanks.
Carol shares tips for the rest of us in her latest post on entrepreneur.com, “Sleep In and Make Millions: Why You Don’t Need to Wake Up at 5 A.M.” She begins:
“We’ve all heard how successful entrepreneurs wake up well before the crack of dawn and get a metric ton done before 5 a.m.
However, as a successful entrepreneur who struggles with mornings, I wanted to let the late risers out there know that there is hope for you, too. So, I spoke with a variety of millionaires who wouldn’t even think of waking up at 5 or 6 . . . or even 7 a.m.
Here’s our best advice to be successful when the snooze button is your best friend.
Know what works for you.
Getting proper sleep is more important than waking up at a certain hour. And, if you are more productive at a late hour, that should be your priority.
Millionaire serial entrepreneur Bryan Clayton, now CEO of GreenPal, gets out of bed between 8 and 9 a.m. He says, “While building my last company, I tried as hard as I could to get out of bed at 4 or 5 a.m. After forcing myself for over six months to crack dawn every morning, I realized that I was half as effective as I was when I was getting 8 to 9 hours of sleep every day.
“It’s better to accept the fact that you need a good night’s sleep to be the best at what you do than forcing yourself to be something that you’re not.”
Ross Andrew Paquette, founder and CEO of Maropost, has a nine-figure net worth. He wakes up between 9 and 9:30 a.m. He says, “I go to bed when my ideas are exhausted, not when I am. The early morning is overdone. If your best ideas come at night, work at night. Take sleepless nights as a sign you have something worth working on, then take those sleepless nights to work on it.”
Paul Koger, who is a self-employed millionaire trader and owner of Foxytrades, regularly gets up at 9:15 a.m., just 15 minutes before the markets open. He advises that if you like to sleep in, you can be successful if you tackle more difficult tasks when you are more productive and take it easy in the morning.
“Many successful people have been promoting lack of sleep, getting up early and working crazy hours, while it is actually more important to recognize what works for you and optimize workflow accordingly,” says Koger.
Be ready to work when you wake up.
Craig Wolfe, a multi-millionaire and president of CelebriDucks and Cocoa Canard, says, “I actually get up between 8:15 and 9 a.m., but since I manufacture in different time zones, I usually have to work into the night. To be successful, no matter how much time you have and when you start and end work, you have to come up with set times throughout the day where you are 100 percent available and also times when you are committed to handling different aspects of your day-to-day business needs.”
You can read the rest of the post here.
