This morning, I decided to give myself exactly 10 minutes to write — no more, no less. I would write what I was thinking, delete only typos, and keep moving. Below is what came out of that process.
There is something so magical about the first cup of coffee in the morning. It’s like a cleansing and a rebirth all at once. The sins of yesterday, which felt so real and so dreadfully heavy last night, are seemingly carried down the esophagus by that first swig of coffee. Maybe it’s the heat. Maybe it’s the acidity. Hell, maybe it’s both. However it happens, it does indeed happen. Perhaps that’s why I end up feeling so invigorated. One hand on the laptop, one hand reaching for the handle of the mug — it feels so much like the sacred rituals of a religion, but without the pretense.
These little things keep me going when I feel so tired, and somehow manage to establish momentum for the day ahead. It’s no wonder, then, that so many pieces have been written about doing things in the morning, first thing. But perhaps there’s even more to it than that.
I have just started reading Deep Work by Cal Newport, and he makes a great point about willpower. He says (and I’m paraphrasing here) that willpower is not some manifestation of character that can just be called upon at any time. It’s not something that some people always have and others just don’t. It is like a muscle, and as you use it more during the day, it gets fatigued. This is why rest is so important, but it’s probably also why that first cup of coffee is also so important. Being able to just sit and allow the ritual of the coffee to wash away the things that were weighing on me so much last night allows me to take on things today with renewed vigor. It also justifies that attitude of “I just can’t deal with this now.”
But more than anything, I think that it’s important to safeguard this time in the morning, to make sure that I use it properly. This time should be where I stretch that muscle of willpower — the one that I need to use in order to do deep work throughout the day. But I need to stretch it, not start putting it under load. That’s an important difference, because if I do the latter, I can effectively ruin the balance of my day by having fatigued the very muscle that stands to help me strengthen my body of work.
10 minutes has already gone by, and it’s amazing to see how little that can give me. Time is a very tricky resource — the scarcest resource, in fact. Even when you don’t want to use it, you’re using it — constantly. I’ve always been poor at time management, so making sure that I get the most out of the time that continues to be depleted, despite my wishes, is so very important.
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Originally published at Your Fool Laureate.
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