We Try It! Five Minutes in the Morning

I’m a semi-morning person in that I understand and appreciate that getting up a little earlier–early enough to take your time with your morning routine–makes the start of the day so much better. And yet I just like sleep so much. There are plenty of nights I head to bed not because I’m tired, or because I’m not enjoying what I’m doing, but just because I want that wonderful feeling of snuggling under the covers and turning out the light. (Yeah, I’m pretty much five.)

So in general this policy serves me well. I’m well-rested, I don’t hate mornings, and I have no regrets. But my reluctance to get out of bed sometimes condenses my morning routine so much that I miss out on my other great love: coffee.  After one too many wistful glances at my half-full coffee cup before rushing out the door, I decided to try taking five minutes every morning just to sit on my bed and enjoy my coffee. It doesn’t sound like a huge sacrifice, but considering the idea of five quiet minutes to do anything in the early morning usually just makes me think, “Why not just sleep an extra five minutes?”

I’m a coffee person, after all, and like my fellow java devotees, my enjoyment of the stuff is as much about the ritual as it is about the flavor (not to mention the caffeine kick). There’s something so soothing about mixing up the perfect amount of sugar and milk, and waiting until it’s cooled down just enough to enjoy. I figured that taking five whole minutes every day to really savor each sip–and not gulp it down in between putting on makeup, making lunch, and feeding the pets–would really make me happy.

So, want to know what happened? I completely failed to do it the first four days. Like I said, I don’t have a rushed morning routine per se, but it’s pretty tight. And I seem to have some subconscious reaction to needing to get up early that just makes me hit the snooze button even more. But after a few early setbacks, I managed to actually do it on a sunny Friday, and hit the pause button after putting my face on, but before making lunch.

Basically: best idea ever. I can’t vouch for what mornings are like for busy parents, but I hope there’s still a way to take a few minutes to yourself because it really does work wonders. Putting an empty coffee cup in the sink every day gives me a much bigger feeling of satisfaction than it probably should, but I’ll take a win wherever I can get it.

I think that’s what it comes down to. I don’t love my job, I absolutely hate my super-long commute, and with my busy schedule, I always feel like I’m giving something (or multiple things) the short shrift. Pouring that coffee down the drain in the mornings wasn’t so much about wasting the coffee, but it was just another compromise, another failure to take two freaking seconds to do something I wanted to do rather than what I had to do. Maybe because this “problem” was so small, I decided that it would be the one I would fix. And maybe that’s why my sense of accomplishment was so outsized.

It doesn’t have to be coffee, you know. Whatever it is you like to in the morning, take a little time out from all that boring, productive stuff, and enjoy it. Unless you’re very lucky, there’s probably a part of you that dreads the weekday slog, that rues the morning alarm, that feels that little tug as you rush out the door. Try taking just a few minutes to savor something nice before you head out into the real world, and see if it helps just a little bit.