Can You Provide Advice on My Morning Struggles?

00:00:00.000 | [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:00:03.360 | All right, so we have a question here from Juliet.

00:00:09.520 | This may win the award for the longest question that's

00:00:14.040 | ever been submitted.

00:00:15.240 | It takes up 1 and 1/2 pages, single space printed out here.

00:00:19.020 | So what I'm going to do is I'm going

00:00:20.520 | to do a little bit of creative editing

00:00:21.760 | because there's a very good question in here.

00:00:23.640 | We just maybe will excise some of the details.

00:00:27.520 | So Juliet is asking about mornings.

00:00:31.480 | She says, I want to ask you for help with mornings.

00:00:34.520 | I find it easy to stick to my time blocks

00:00:37.160 | and to have a productive and focused day once I start work.

00:00:40.480 | However, at least 50% of the time, I don't start work

00:00:43.960 | on time.

00:00:45.680 | Now, she goes on-- this is where I'm going to excise or elide

00:00:49.240 | some of the details.

00:00:50.520 | There's reasons for this.

00:00:52.280 | Number one, insomnia, which I get

00:00:55.640 | because I have to some degree.

00:00:57.440 | And two, there's a fibromyalgia issue.

00:01:01.200 | The details here are complicated,

00:01:02.600 | but it has a real impact on the morning as well.

00:01:05.800 | So it's just very hard.

00:01:07.280 | She has a schedule that has a lot of things in the morning--

00:01:10.920 | meditation, yoga, running-- that's

00:01:13.040 | supposed to have her working by 9:30.

00:01:15.640 | 50% of the time, she doesn't get there.

00:01:18.560 | So then she goes on-- if we skip past there,

00:01:22.360 | she goes on and says, I think you'll say, Juliet,

00:01:26.280 | at some point, you've got to be a professional,

00:01:28.280 | and professionals show up to work on time.

00:01:30.520 | This is, of course, irrefutable, and it's what I need to do.

00:01:33.080 | But I thought this would still be a useful question

00:01:34.920 | to ask because I can't believe I'm

00:01:36.040 | the only homeworker out there who struggles with mornings.

00:01:38.840 | Am I, though?

00:01:41.000 | No, Juliet, look, I'm often slow to start in the mornings.

00:01:45.640 | I'm not great with mornings.

00:01:46.800 | I'm not a morning person.

00:01:48.760 | I usually am upset by how late I actually

00:01:53.680 | get going with work in the mornings,

00:01:57.240 | exactly like you describe.

00:01:59.600 | And I don't really have the same really legitimate reasons

00:02:02.520 | you have to justify why I have a hard time getting

00:02:05.520 | ready in the morning.

00:02:06.920 | So some things are fixed.

00:02:09.120 | We get up.

00:02:10.520 | I walk my older two boys to the bus stop.

00:02:12.880 | I got to get them ready, which, by the way,

00:02:16.480 | is an impossible task.

00:02:18.640 | It is crazy.

00:02:19.360 | Can I just say as an aside, have you

00:02:22.360 | ever tried in a 20-minute period at 7 AM in the morning

00:02:25.680 | to get an eight-year-old and a six-year-old

00:02:27.760 | ready to go to school?

00:02:29.920 | You would think that I came downstairs and said, boys,

00:02:32.800 | I'm sorry, I need a working low wattage nuclear fission

00:02:37.160 | reaction put together by 7/20.

00:02:40.920 | You would think that's what I basically asked,

00:02:43.120 | that you need to go find some uranium and a high capacity

00:02:48.360 | welding arc torch and build a nuclear fission reaction.

00:02:51.400 | Basically, I might as well be asking that.

00:02:53.320 | So what I've started doing--

00:02:54.720 | and Juliet, I'm sorry to go off on the side here,

00:02:56.760 | but this is just my life right now.

00:02:58.000 | What I've been doing then is we've

00:02:59.000 | been structuring my wife and I more and more

00:03:00.840 | every step of how they get ready.

00:03:03.320 | Because if we leave them any room, they literally freeze.

00:03:07.960 | They literally freeze.

00:03:08.880 | You'll come back.

00:03:09.600 | I could light the items on the table around them on fire.

00:03:14.120 | And if we left them alone without instructions,

00:03:16.160 | they would just sit there with the fire spreading around them.

00:03:18.240 | They just won't move.

00:03:19.560 | So everything, do this, then do that,

00:03:21.320 | then do this.

00:03:23.120 | And the other morning, I think I had everything down.

00:03:25.320 | I literally put a timer on the table

00:03:26.800 | while they're eating breakfast so they can see.

00:03:28.800 | You've got to eat, because when that timer is up,

00:03:31.280 | we've got to move on.

00:03:32.160 | You can't just literally freeze for 20 minutes.

00:03:35.040 | And I had it all worked out down to the very last thing, which

00:03:37.880 | was like, OK, we make them pack their stuff ahead of time,

00:03:42.000 | put everything, your jackets, everything by the door

00:03:44.320 | before you sit down and eat breakfast.

00:03:45.920 | It's all there.

00:03:47.240 | Had a timer during breakfast, so you

00:03:48.800 | have to eat, because the day before, my six-year-old just

00:03:51.160 | sat there, and then after 20 minutes, hadn't eaten a thing.

00:03:54.200 | All right, everything's figured out.

00:03:55.700 | We're on time.

00:03:56.440 | Go put on your stuff.

00:03:58.320 | I go up, change, come down to take them out there.

00:04:00.960 | They had basically just frozen in the room next to there.

00:04:03.280 | They went to their stuff and just sat there.

00:04:05.720 | So frustrating.

00:04:07.160 | Anyways, that's all a tangent, Juliet.

00:04:09.600 | So I do that.

00:04:10.240 | I take my boys to school.

00:04:11.280 | That's fine.

00:04:12.320 | That's not on me.

00:04:13.000 | That's hard.

00:04:14.080 | And then I just can't--

00:04:16.160 | I can't get ready fast.

00:04:18.200 | I can't do it.

00:04:19.920 | My wife makes fun of me.

00:04:20.920 | I don't know how normal people do this.

00:04:24.160 | Normal people, my wife will be downstairs.

00:04:25.960 | We'll be talking.

00:04:27.200 | And she's like, oh, I got to get ready to take the kids to school.

00:04:29.880 | I got to grab a shower, et cetera.

00:04:32.360 | Four minutes later, she's downstairs,

00:04:34.720 | showered, fully dressed, taking the kids out the door.

00:04:36.960 | This takes me 35 minutes.

00:04:37.960 | And I don't know why it takes me so-- it just eats up my time.

00:04:40.840 | Somehow, getting ready just eats up all of my time.

00:04:43.240 | And I'm ranting a little bit about this, because I'm

00:04:45.440 | so frustrated with myself, that you would think

00:04:47.560 | taking a shower, shaving, putting on clothes

00:04:49.160 | should take about 15 minutes.

00:04:50.440 | It takes me 35 minutes.

00:04:51.680 | I've even tried.

00:04:52.600 | I've literally tried to break it down step by step.

00:04:54.840 | How can I squeeze time out of it?

00:04:56.200 | I've put on timers.

00:04:57.480 | It just takes me forever.

00:04:58.720 | It takes me five times the time it takes my wife.

00:05:00.960 | I'm not doing anything special.

00:05:02.000 | I just-- I don't know.

00:05:03.040 | Maybe I get stuck thinking in the shower.

00:05:04.720 | That's probably true.

00:05:06.280 | I don't know what's going on.

00:05:08.080 | But more often than not, it'll be 9 or 9 30.

00:05:11.440 | And I really haven't done anything yet.

00:05:13.840 | And I have to leave by 10, a little after 10,

00:05:16.960 | to get to campus to teach.

00:05:18.160 | And so there's not enough time to get anything done.

00:05:20.420 | And morning after morning, I'm thinking, look,

00:05:22.320 | I've been up since 6.

00:05:24.120 | And here I am driving to work at 10.

00:05:26.720 | I haven't done anything.

00:05:29.520 | All of this leads to, Juliette, you're not a morning person.

00:05:32.040 | It's fine.

00:05:33.760 | Have a later-- put a big buffer into your morning

00:05:36.160 | and have a later start.

00:05:37.720 | And if you get started early, then you can end early.

00:05:39.920 | It's not a big deal.

00:05:41.320 | But just start your day at 10 30 or something.

00:05:44.680 | I mean, I basically do that a lot of days anyway.

00:05:47.880 | So anyways, I thought in honor of the longest question that

00:05:52.100 | had ever been submitted, I would give an unnecessarily long

00:05:54.600 | answer.

00:05:55.100 | But there we go.

00:05:56.420 | My mornings are an entire source of frustration for me,

00:05:59.020 | Juliette.

00:05:59.520 | So welcome to the club.

00:06:01.260 | We had jackets made.

00:06:02.160 | We'll send you one.

00:06:04.060 | [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:06:07.420 | [MUSIC PLAYING]

Can You Provide Advice on My Morning Struggles?

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