a solo morning swim and a full breakfast

I've been trying to wake up earlier for the past few days. I want to get a very good working system in place before the two simultaneous work projects start on the hard parts (i.e. fieldwork and analysis).

So far what has been consistent is that I do my best work in the mornings, before lunch. And then I could sustain it after lunch until about 3PM. And then it all starts to go downhill. So if I have a lot to do I am better off waking up early so I can have the big chunk of the morning available to me.

On the other hand, I also have to make sure that everything else is in place -- an exercise or fitness activity, a full breakfast for brainpower, and an organized (and doable) goals list to keep me on track for the rest of the day.

Today has been good so far. I got up at 7:30AM. Did some yoga stretches and then headed for the pool for a 30-minute swim (nonstop laps until right before the noisy kids start to arrive at the pool area). Then I cooked myself a full breakfast and instead of a newspaper I read articles from Zite - an iPad app that lets you customize web news and articles according to the topics you want. My favorite subjects are mostly on Productivity, Psychology, Happiness, and Writing. No use ruining the day with bad news and gossip from standard news websites.

coffee, egg, salami, honey oat bread, cream cheese

Work flowed smoothly after breakfast. Although the real test will be when fieldwork and analysis stage happens. Right now it's mostly preparation and getting a lot of details in place. It's demanding and time-consuming but it's made up of little bits of tasks that are easily divided and clustered. Fieldwork and analysis are huge tasks like tough meat that need extra work to be handled well. But I am optimistic.