Wondering what actual real estate investors have to say about this subject. I don't get up early (wake up between 7:00 - 8:00 most days, 9:00AM + on the weekends). I feel that I am having moderate-high success thus far with my career and real estate in spite of the fact that I wake up at an average to late time. I have a sneaking suspicion that the people who DO get up super early AND are successful might just be the loudest, not the most numerous. But, I could be wrong. What do the actual investors on BiggerPockets have to say about this? Does getting up early (6:00 AM or earlier) make a difference on whether you are likely to succeed in this or any other business? Or, are there just as many or more successful business people and investors that wake up at more reasonable times?

I just woke up...i will ponder the question and let you know.....

I think the universe rewards productivity regardless of when it happens. Some are morning people, some are night people. We need to stay off social media (unless we're marketing), turn off the TV, read educational books, work hard and efficient, have integrity. To me all these things are all more important than a wake up time.

I don't think the time you wake up has anything to do with success, except for the people selling you books about how waking up early is the key to success. Productivity does not have an alarm clock in my opinion. The owner of a donut shop can be very productive rising early but totally useless at 3pm. A prostitute can be highly productive waking up at noon but putting in major work at 3am :)

Early bird gets the worm... second mouse gets the cheese.

It comes down to time management and self-discipline. You can wake up every morning at 6 am, but if you spend an hour getting out of bed you might as well just slept in. On the contrary, if you wake up at 6 am and spend an hour on BP reading posts and learning something new, you just took a step in bettering yourself. It's what you do with your time that matters. I actually had to step back and look at my life and ask myself why do I let myself get 8 hours of sleep. I'm not where I want to be, I don't deserve 8 hours of sleep till I get where I want. If you're finding success in your schedule now, then hey man stick with it cause it looks like you have good time management. But think, if you are already that good with time management, image what you could do with one extra hour a morning.

For some, waking up at all is a success.

If the time you get up dictates your success then old people like me would all be millionaires. Once you get to my age you hardly sleep at all, except for an afternoon nap and in the evenings watching TV.

Back in my 20' I was making millions running a tech firm I started... I got up at 10am-12pm.. stayed up to 12am-3am, did everything people told me not to do, and still got from point A to point Z.. fast forward 15 years, and I get up between 4am and 8am, still minting money.. I now use that time to read emails, drink a lot of coffee, ride bikes. mainly the last two. So clearly when you get up does nothing for success... The #1 thing I see, is that I'm hyper effective with my time compared to others.

I don't think it makes any difference from a theoretical point of view. I think it's more about time management than anything else. Some people find it impossible to focus unless they put this stuff front and center, before anyone else is awake. Beyond that, unless getting up got you a deal before anyone else got up, I fail to see the correlation. Personally, I do my best work from about 10-5. I am not a morning person, never have been despite having morning jobs all my life. I try to never schedule a meeting before I am firing on all cylinders.

Does Getting Up Early Have Anything to Do with Your Success?

Brandon Brown

Rental Property Investor · Nashville, TN · Member since 2015 · 102 posts · 129 votes

9y

I wake up early. Do I think it gives me an advantage over another investor that wakes up later? - maybe.

Will I credit my success to the time I wake up? - no.

There are tons of variables to success, wake up time could be one of them. But I think it depends more on a persons grit than anything.

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Odie Ayaga

Specialist · Delran, NJ · Member since 2016 · 2k+ posts · 951 votes

9y

There's a nice chapter in The One Thing that talks about willpower being a muscle and it fatiguing over the course of a day. I don't wake up early as I tend to be a night person so I try to use the earlier part of my day to not just be productive, as others have stated, but to do the things that will drain my willpower the most such as decision-making and processing information. I try to stack things that require less thought and/or things that I enjoy doing later in the day.

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Matthew Greco

Manhattan NY · Member since 2017 · 74 posts · 14 votes

9y

I think it matter more what you do when you get up than the actual time you wake. I hit the gym M,W,F,Sa and FlyWheel cycling on Sunday mornings. Tuesdays and Thursdays are a noticeable change in energy. I can't and don't want to workout at nights, the feeling of getting that blood pumping in the AM is really amazing.

I also recommend going outside within an hour of waking, sooner if you can. That fresh air and sun do wonders for you. Get out there with a glass of water and breath deep, this is the real fountain of youth.

Now try doing all of this and being a UPS driver!!! I sometimes wonder how I do it. Hopefully not for too much longer tho ;)

Matt

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Cody L.

Rental Property Investor · San Diego, CA · Member since 2013 · 3k+ posts · 4k+ votes

9y

I hope not. I get up at 8am at the earliest. Sometimes 9

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Alex J.

Investor · Tarzana CA and Houston, TX · Member since 2015 · 326 posts · 130 votes

9y

I wake up early for my job and my kids are also always awake very early. I don't think it has to do with my success...it just happens to be when the market trades...I trade natural gas futures for my day job

In real estate actually find most people I deal with from agents to loan people don't start their day till 9am I never understood how people do that ....half my day is gone already at that time

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James Fisher

Real Estate Agent · Jupiter, FL · Member since 2016 · 32 posts · 11 votes

9y

Through podcasts, articles, youtube videos, biographies, etc. one may learn that many of the most successful individuals in the world wake up between 4-5 am. However, arguments can be made for waking up early as well as waking up at a time that works best for you.

From personal experience, if I can wake up around 4:30 am and utilize the 2.5 to 3.5 hours I have prior to heading into the office, the amount I can accomplish that day significantly increases. Though it may seem obviously that one will accomplish more when having an extra 3 hours, I believe that it is not simply the extra time that accounts for the extra success.

By beginning my day with 2 to 3 hours focused on a morning ritual or daily task, I free up space in my mind to creatively take advantage of the evening. The productive hours early in the morning reduce potential stress in the evening. Thus, when I would otherwise be mentally drained and stressed heading into the evening, I am now calm and optimistic about what can be accomplished in my final hours of the day.

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Sarah Melton

Akron, OH · Member since 2017 · 25 posts · 14 votes

9y

I've been recently trying to wake up prior to when I need to be up (which happens to also be early) and have found that so far it has made a lot of positive changes. I have created a routine and get my 'success have to's' out of the way prior to my family being up and my regular day starting. This has largely served me well though because I am trying to start this real estate business and side hustle in addition to my regular responsibilities and full time job. If the real estate and side hustle were my full time job, I don't know that getting up early would be so essential. By the time they are my full time focus, I'll likely be in such a pattern that it will stick and I have found that I do enjoy the reduced distractions!

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Brie SchmidtBusiness Member

Moderator

Real Estate Broker · Chicago, IL · Member since 2013 · 6k+ posts · 5k+ votes

9y

@Scott Trench - When I was in corporate I worked west coast for a few years and got up at 8 am and was in the office by 10 am and then did east coast for a few years and got up at 5 am and was in the office by 7 am. I don't think it made a difference.

Now I am self employed and work only local so I wake up when my body tells me to (anywhere from 6:30 am - 9:00 am) I need sleep, usually 8-9 hours to be alert, focused, and refreshed. I am the most efficient when I am rested and can do things faster and with more accuracy. I consider myself to be pretty successful, and I do not get up early to do that (I also go to bed at 10 pm every day, usually on weekends too)

If I got up at 6 am every day so I could get more done I feel it would add another 90 minutes to my day but it would probably take me longer to accomplish the things I need to do because I am groggy and not mentally sharp.

I also enjoy day naps sometimes and take them as I please. I also avoid doing mentally intensive tasks on days I wake up not alert (reporting takes about 10-12 hours and is pretty complicated, if I am having an off day it will take me twice as long and I will probably have errors)

I started using the "getting things done" method about 2 years ago. I keep a notebook and every week keep a to-do list. It really helped me be more efficient and accomplished. I write everything down for the week and review it multiple times a day. So I wake up and already know what needs to get done that day. Some days I work 14 hours some days I work 2 - and that mainly depends on my mood that day

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Bob Razler

Rental Property Investor · Boca Raton, FL · Member since 2017 · 329 posts · 237 votes

9y

Hello @Scott Trench :

I have woken up at 4 am or so for the last 8 years. I never read the book about it (but it's on my list).

I wake up because it was always a great time to work on whatever it was I was interested in at the time. Also, it made going to work at 8 so much better because I felt like I had already accomplished so much.

I highly recommend getting up early to everyone. Even if it's just an hour.

Bob

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Paul B.

Rental Property Investor · Dallas, TX · Member since 2015 · 501 posts · 504 votes

9y

I went to high school in the mid-90s, when people knew what the Internet was, but it simply wasn't used by everyone yet. I had a shop teacher that would be up at 5AM every Sunday when the thick newspaper was dropped on his doorstep, and he would immediately flip to the classifieds and look for used cars that were underpriced. He would then run to the phone when he found a deal, and buy the car, fix it up, and sell it for a profit. He sometimes did the same with real estate, but mostly was into cars.

Years later, when Craigslist and other web sites made newspaper classified ads irrelevant, I imagine that the urge to be the first guy in town to open up the Sunday paper faded away. But at the time, it was a very specific case where the early bird would indeed get the worm. There simply was no other way to know what was for sale until you saw it in print.

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Account Closed

Flipper · Tualatin, OR · Member since 2017 · 28 posts · 16 votes

9y

When I get up at 5 every morning I feel I am able to be more proactive about the day. I am able to enjoy my morning tea, process email, catchup on blog articles, look at my daily to do list, and so forth before anyone else is asking me for stuff. When I get a late start to the day, other people are already calling and sending emails. I am being reactive and unable to focus as much. Everyone is different of course and your gas mileage might vary. Good topic though!!

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Lucas Machado

Real Estate Investor · Sunny Isles Beach, FL · Member since 2013 · 788 posts · 333 votes

9y

Obviously this is a subjective topic - so these are some subjective opinions:

You have no interruptions in the morning - or at least extremely less interruptions. Planning your day, organizing your day, eating healthy breakfast, not racing to your 9:00 a.m. meeting - these are all things that are very good for the average person. I would imagine the whole "I thrive on living the edge of my seat!" is actually a small percentage of people vs. successful people that meticulously planned their time.

If you've been successful without these things, great. There is quite a bit of luck involved in business, or perhaps you just had a genius idea that timed the market perfectly. Perhaps you were naturally born with some skill that was so amazing your planning didn't even matter. You can end up at the right place at the right time with the right stock options. Of course, not everyone can count on that. Most of us have to make our own luck. The better your plan for yourself, the better you will be, the better position to capitalize when the opportunity shows itself. And even if you had been amazingly successful without meticulous time management, there is a good chance with even better time management you could have accomplished even more.

Logically speaking, the best time to plan is the morning. To be successful, you obviously have to be meeting with many people, having many communications, which almost all happen in the middle of the day. If i'm working 4-deal at once, my phone literally never stops ringing and I HAVE to take those calls (and I am mainly referring to major decisions - I always use a GC, administrative support)- so the idea to me that I'm going to run-point on multiple deals and sit quietly and plan in the middle of the day would never work.

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Anthony GaydenPro Member

Rental Property Investor · Omaha, NE · Member since 2014 · 2k+ posts · 3k+ votes

9y

Scott Trench It's not about the time you wake up. It's about taking control of your life and making the time to get things done. Keeping that in mind, I wake up at 3:00am daily and work out at the gym.

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Amy A.

Portland, ME · Member since 2012 · 616 posts · 550 votes

9y

I am not a morning person. I wish I were. Getting up early is miserable to me and one of the reasons I chose real estate investing. It's not that I'm lazy; I've completed 3 marathons! There's just something "off" in my sleep/wake cycle and I've been like this my whole life. I was a slightly above average student in high school when classes started at 7:30 am, but was an excellent college student - partly because I had days I could get up late. I consider myself a successful investor because I am able to live off my rentals with no supplemental income if I choose, which is the goal of many in this forum.

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Jill F.

Investor · Akron, OH · Member since 2016 · 2k+ posts · 4k+ votes

9y

I've always been a night person-- 9am is the buttcrack of dawn for me. I usually feel best and get my best work done right after dinner.

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Does Getting Up Early Have Anything to Do with Your Success?

Does Getting Up Early Have Anything to Do with Your Success?

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