Matt Ragland wakes at 4:15 AM for a 5 AM meeting and explains why treating personal time as appointments with yourself actually works. He learned the technique from Mike Birbiglia and uses it for massages, walks, and writing sessions to build habits and respect his own time.
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Hey, good morning everyone. It is early and I'm here in Nashville. Came That's right, I'm in Nashville for a couple of days. Still wrapping the house up. My brother Mark is getting into town, and so we're gonna get to hang out this weekend. Really looking forward to that, and have already— I woke up at 4:15, so already gotten after it today. Let me know how you've been working. By the way, excellent restaurant, 210 Jack, here in Nashville. One of my favorites, but getting ready to go into climb and get a lift on for just a minute. What a bummer, guy's throwing up in the parking lot. Look, it's my brother Mark.
Mom and dad raised you well? Only the finest brisket for my little—
Take bro, bro!
No brisket!
The brisket dad. Brisket and bum. Brisket and bum. Brisket and bum. This particular thought of the day I did earlier as a Facebook Live, but like an idiot I forgot to record it. But you know, I always do things better the second time around, and so here it is. The thought that I was banging around in my head for the last couple of days, and especially this morning, because this morning I got up at 4:15 AM to have a meeting at 5 AM. And I don't normally do that, but I do love getting up early. 4:15 is really early. But when I try and get up early, like, it doesn't always work. Like, you know, you're like, oh, I could sleep a little longer. It's cold outside. It's warm under the bed. But when I have an appointment with someone, when I have a call I'm supposed to be on, when I have a workshop I'm supposed to lead, I'm there. Like, that's something that I nail every time. I'm there. It's a responsibility. It's a commitment that I've made that involves other people. And so the likelihood of me showing up, like, is just exponentially greater. It doesn't matter how little I've slept the night before, anything like that. Like, I'm going to be there at 5, and I was. So the first person that I heard about this idea from was Mike Birbiglia, and he's an amazing comedian. I'll leave his website in the description box. I always want to say show notes because I did podcasting for a while, but in the description box I'll leave you some information about Birbiggs. But he talked about this on Tim Ferriss's podcast, and one of the ways that he tricked himself to being able to write more was that he would make appointments with himself. So when he would get up in the morning, he'd be like, Mike, you have an appointment with your mind. And it sounds a little cheesy, it sounds a little kooky, but he's like, it worked so well. And so I've started trying to do that over the past couple of months. And the past couple of weeks, I've been exceptionally better at it in terms of getting up early. And since I did it this morning, I wanted to share it with you in today's vlog. The idea behind it for me is that I realized I wasn't respecting my own time with myself as much as I respected other people's time. And when you think about it, that's really weird. Why don't we respect ourselves as much as we maybe tend to respect other people? Because I do think that there's an almost healthy level of selfishness to doing the things that really bring you energy, that bring you life, because then you're going to be able to— like, it's not like it just stops with you. You'll be able to share that life and energy with other people. So I'd encourage you in the next week, make an appointment with yourself for something that you really care about. And it could even be something that maybe feels a little luxurious, like make, you know, make a massage appointment for yourself if you can do that, or just like a delicious— like if you're a latte person, like make yourself a latte appointment. Make sure you show up to that appointment. And then start building that out to other things. Like if you want to exercise more, make an exercise appointment with yourself, even if it's just a walk around the block. Make a writing appointment with yourself and stick to that appointment. Give yourself the respect that you give to other people when you make an appointment, when you make a commitment to them. So that's the trick. That's the advice for today's vlog is make an appointment with yourself. All right, and treat— start treating more things like appointments, especially when they come to things that will move you forward, that will help you achieve your goals, that will bring you life and bring you energy, because then you'll more and more become the type of person that is sharing that energy in life with everyone else. All right, thanks so much for watching this. We're coming down to the last few days. It's exciting. We're gonna hit this. Thanks so much for watching. Make sure you subscribe because this is gonna keep happening. It's not going to end at the end of February. So, thanks so much and I'll see you tomorrow. Bye!
