Inquisitive.me

I’m not a morning person.

For years, I treated this as something I needed to fix.

I tried waking up earlier to go for a run, walk Leto, or do some deep work. You know, like all those successful entrepreneurs and influencers who apparently finish half their lives before I’ve had breakfast.

The 5 AM Club is still on my reading list. I haven’t convinced myself to read it yet.

But I did convince myself that I wasn’t disciplined enough. Wasn’t trying hard enough.

Why couldn’t I be part of that club?

Looking back, mornings have always been difficult for me.

At school, I had to get up at 6 a.m. to make it to class by 7:45. My brain usually joined us around 9:30.

My teachers noticed too. If I struggled to follow, they’d joke, “I’ll ask you again at 10, when your brain is ready.”

Could I concentrate before then? Yes. If there was an exam, I could make it work. But it took more effort. More energy to get somewhere that felt much more accessible later in the morning.

The same goes for exercise.

An early run feels considerably harder than an afternoon run. Even a walk with Leto can feel like more effort than it reasonably should.

There are exceptions. Give me a mountain and a sunrise worth getting up for, and I can leave at 5 a.m. without much trouble.

Apparently, my enthusiasm for mornings depends on what’s waiting at the top.

But an occasional sunrise hike is different from a routine I’m trying to repeat every week.

I’ve known for years that my best thinking usually starts around 10 a.m. My preferred training time is around 4 or 5 in the afternoon. I can also work or train later in the evening.

And yet I kept trying to become someone who does all of that before work.

Then I came across a newsletter by Sahil Bloom discussing Ultraproductive by Eric Partaker and Christian Poensgen. It included three questions about when you naturally wake up, think most clearly, and experience an energy dip.

My answers came easily.

Without an alarm, I’d usually wake up around 7:30–8:30 a.m. My sharpest thinking happens mid to late morning. And my concentration tends to dip in the afternoon.

My ideal weekend morning already looks like this: breakfast, some reading on the couch, coffee, and then getting to work an hour or two after waking.

According to the framework in the newsletter, that makes me a “third bird”—somewhere between an early lark and a night owl.

I haven’t read the book yet, and I wouldn’t treat a few questions as a precise assessment. But the description felt familiar.

It put words to a pattern I’d spent years noticing—and trying to override.

The newsletter focused on thinking time. It also made me think about training.

I don’t need an exact formula to notice that running before work feels much harder for me than running later in the day.

I’ve tried it several times. I felt more tired, the effort felt higher, and I enjoyed it considerably less.

If every run in my marathon preparation had felt like those morning runs, I doubt I would have stuck with the plan long enough to reach the start line.

Training in the afternoon still required effort. There were plenty of runs I didn’t particularly feel like doing. But the timing made the whole thing easier to repeat.

I hear similar things from patients.

“It’s really hard for me to exercise in the morning.”

And my first response is often:

“Then don’t.”

Then we look at when it could work.

Of course, work, children, appointments, and everyday life don’t always leave us with much choice. If mornings are the time you have, that matters too. You don’t need to find a perfect training window before you can start.

But when there is room to choose, why keep picking the time that consistently feels hardest?

Pay attention to when exercise feels more manageable. When you have a little more energy. When getting started requires less negotiation with yourself.

Then see whether your schedule can make room for it.

A morning routine can be brilliant for someone else. That doesn’t automatically make it a useful routine for you.

I still have to do the training.

I’d just rather do it when my brain and body have both arrived.

🧪 Let’s Experiment

---

Before questioning your discipline, try questioning your timing.

That workout you keep postponing might deserve a different slot in your day.

🎯 Try This:

Over the next week, notice how you feel when it’s time to exercise. Is getting started a small effort or a full negotiation?

Move one or two familiar sessions—or your usual walk—to another time that realistically fits your day. Keep the activity roughly the same.

Notice whether starting feels easier, how the movement feels, and whether you’d choose that time again.

🧠 Final Thought:

Training still takes effort. You’re allowed to make showing up easier.

---