Admittedly, I am naturally an early riser. I naturally wake up at about 5 AM without the need for an alarm clock. This is haw I’ve been since I can remember. I have read several books such as The Miracle Morning and others that talk about how successful people wake up early in the morning. Benjamin Franklin also taught the same concept with his “Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise” quote. So hearing all of this reinforces to me the importance of waking up early to be successful. It does this to the point that I get bothered/annoyed/frustrated with people when they sleep in and waste away their morning. Now, my wife says that it is not true. In her opinion, waking up early has no correlation between being successful or not being successful. So I wanted to open this question up to the BP community. What has your experience been? Do the people you know in your life who are successful wake up early (say before 6 AM or earlier) or do they wake up later?

When I was single, waking up early did not matter. There was plenty of time to work 60+ hours, exercise, manage real estate, and have a social life...it was easy. With a wife and kids though, getting started on critical tasks early and priming the day is essential for my mindset and success. It's also a common thread among successful entrepreneurs and executives.

My opinions on this subject can be found here: "Stop Telling Me I Need to Wake Up Early to Be Successful" https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/sleep-in

I am a student of success. I study several different successful people (multi-million net worth type) and some actually do not wake up early. With that being said, one of the common things I've noticed from every one of these people is that they all have a ritual of some type. Many meditate in order to ground themselves. They all live very intently in that they get the high priority, forward moving things done which allows them to do whatever they like after those tasks are done. So in my opinion, it's not so much the act of getting up early as it is getting the critical tasks done to move forward.

Thanks for the shout out :) Background: I have had "morning jobs" my entire life. Virtually my entire W2 life has been spent in the public sector, either in the military or in local government. Those jobs all start first thing in the morning, so I have been getting up between 5-7 AM virtually all of my life. That said: I am a virtual zombie until about 10 AM. It makes no difference if I got up at 3 AM or 9 AM. My brain doesn't work very well in the morning. I find that my most productive work tends to happen in the latter part of the afternoon. I'm often hitting my stride about the time everyone is going home. I try not to schedule meetings before 10 AM because I know I'm just not very effective at that time. So I usually use early mornings to do non-intense tasks like answering e-mail. I do my "heavy lifting" after lunch. With all of that in mind, I think most successful people do tend to wake up early, but I don't think the early part has anything to do with it. Time is an artificial construct, and if we removed artificial light you'd find most people would go to sleep when it got dark and wake up when it got light. Instead, I think most people who are successful tend to be driven by something, and if you are driven by something you tend to want to get to it as soon as you can. So those kind of people tend to want to get their sleep necessity out of the way as soon as they feel like they're not productive, which often means going to bed early, and thus waking up early and getting going on whatever it is they're doing. People who have no driving reason to get out of bed will linger, and if they have no "purpose" then they're in no hurry to go to bed either because there's nothing to get started on the next day. So they tend to stay up later and sleep later. I think most people could just take their cues from their own bodies and be perfectly successful. If you're tired at 9 PM, go to bed. If you feel like leaping out of bed at 5 AM, don't sit there trying to get another hour or two. What do you do when there's no alarm clock, no commitments, and nothing to interrupt your natural sleep cycle like staring at phones, computers or TV screens? That's probably what you should do. Sleep is your recharge period, and everyone needs a different amount. What I take exception to is the idea that to be successful you either need to be a hard driving, 3 hour per night sleep guy or else you need to be in bed by 9 PM in order to leap out at 5 AM and start doing your affirmations. I read the Miracle Morning and if it works for others I say awesome but for me it would do nothing. All that would happen is that I would be up at a non-normal time for me doing things that I would be talking myself into believing would be important. I get up early every day now but that is because my career works that way. When I retire, I believe I will probably go to bed 11-12 PM most nights and be awake about 7-7:30 AM most days because that's what happens when I ignore outside requirements like alarm clocks or things that keep me up like surfing BP :) Also: when I wake up early on my own I enjoy being awake in the early morning. I like how the world is still really quiet - no one is mowing or revving loud engines, and I can hear birds. I love walking in the early morning because it's cool and no one is out and about. I love looking at the mist in the mountains. But this has to be natural, not because I forced it to be so.

I typically get up around 7 AM. I feel like sometimes I get my best work / research done between 10 PM - Midnight. Different strokes for different folks I guess

I am 4am to 5am in the summer 5 am to 6 am winter and just wake naturally. I do no real work past about 5pm.. go to bed fairly early and do my reading then. work out usually before 7am.. I have a full gym in my basement so I have no excuse LOL but I also work from home.. and have now for 7 years or so.. prior to that I always had an office either one I owned or one I leased.

Time is an artificial construct. Plus, we live in a 24/7 world. It all depends on what you do and how you've structured your life. Slackers are slackers even if they get up at 5am, winners will be winners even if they get up at noon. Believe this is antiquated notion that stems from the "early to bed, early to rise" sort of philosophy from generations ago. Some of the most successful people I know are in sales. I have yet to see any one of those guys roll out of bed before 9.

@Shiloh Lundahl I am an early riser 530am and go to bed by 930pm. I like being up when no one is awake it allows me to think clearly and get my most important work done by 10 am. From there the day becomes easy. I also notice that I am the most focused right in the morning. I use to get up at 9am but trained my body for the new time.

Are EARLY RISERS MORE SUCCESSFUL than those who sleep in?

Justin Rank

Investor · Winhall, VT · Member since 2016 · 106 posts · 44 votes

7y

I know for myself whenever I am up early 4-5am I feel that I accomplished way more when I go to sleep than if I am up an hour or two later. Even if I read and get a quick workout in. I think it really is about creating a routine to get the most out of the time you do have. Haha but that also depends how my two year old sleeps at night.

Are EARLY RISERS MORE SUCCESSFUL than those who sleep in?

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