Get Smarter Mornings

About a year ago I started doing something I called, Get Smarter Mornings.  Freshly home from tour and only working a few night-shifts a week at a bar, I was growing increasingly frustrated with just how thoroughly I was wasting all of my free hours.  The culprit was a diet of internet that was heavy on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter and all their videos and links that, though funny or interesting, were educationally empty calories.  In an effort to balance that out with something of substance, I decided that I would not allow myself to look at any sort of social media site until I had completed the following:

  • read a book for an hour
  • read one poem two times
  • watched a Khan Academy video

It worked.  Really well.  I was especially surprised by how having a time limit on reading helped me focus.  I normally get antsy when I have a book in my hands, but knowing that I would be finished reading at a precise time helped me to temporarily put aside all the little distractions popping into my head.  

Unfortunately, Get Smarter Mornings went the way of a lot of my well intentioned ambitions.  I got a second job a month later and started working 50 to 60 hour weeks in order to save up for the next tour.  On days when I’d start at 10am and not get off until 4 the following morning, it didn’t make sense to ban myself from social media, so I bent the rule.  But that reasonable exception was the crack in the dam, and soon Get Smarter Mornings collapsed entirely.  

Lately I’ve been working to revive Get Smarter Mornings.  For version 2.0 the enforcement has been a bit more lenient and I’ve mostly been focused on the Khan Academy and song writing.  The plan is to re-learn the basics of chemistry and write a record without succumbing to the debilitating addiction that is Breaking Bad on Netflix.  (Coincidentally, today I learned a bit about Heisenberg.)

I start most days by drinking a fruit and spinach smoothie because I know at some point later there will likely be bacon, butter, and beer, and I figure it’s a good idea to take as many steps forward before inevitably reversing course.  

It makes sense to treat the mind at least as well as the gut.  

I highly recommend you drink a smoothie first.  Then, by all means, allow yourself some bacon.