Chapter 2 of the book I am writing
Missed the first one? Episode 1: The Day You Stop Waiting
In the last chapter I said that one of the things we wait for most is more time.
I have good news and bad news.
The good news: that time exists. You already have it. You get it for free every single day.
The bad news: it is hidden between nine at night and midnight, and you are spending it on something else.
Two three-hour windows
We all have two three-hour windows that almost nobody looks at closely.
One runs from 5 to 8 in the morning.
The other runs from 9 to 12 at night.
They last exactly the same. Both are yours. Nobody claims them, not your boss, not your clients, not your kids’ school.
But they are not worth the same. Not even close.
And I honestly believe that a big part of a person’s success, personal and professional, comes down to which of the two they choose to live in.
What happens from 9 to 12
Let’s be honest. What do you do from nine to midnight?
You have worked all day. You have made dozens of decisions. You have answered messages, solved problems, maybe argued with someone. You reach the evening with your battery in the red.
And with the battery in the red, the brain asks for the easy thing.
The phone. A series. Another episode, because the last one ended on a cliffhanger. Social media. Something to snack on. A quick game. Another one, because you lost the last one through bad luck.
None of that is bad in itself. The problem is that at that hour you hardly ever choose. At that hour, you pick whatever costs the least effort.
From nine to twelve you are not building your life. You are recovering from it. And often not even that, because the screen keeps you awake longer than it should and you go to bed later than you meant to.
What happens from 5 to 8
Now picture the other window.
It is half past five. The house is quiet. The street is quiet. Your phone is quiet, because the rest of the world is asleep and nobody is writing to you.
No urgent emails. No meetings. No notifications. Nobody needs you yet.
Your head is rested. You haven’t made a single decision yet, so you have all of them still unused.
It is the only moment of the day when the world leaves you alone.
And in that calm, things happen that don’t happen at night:
You can sit for ten minutes doing nothing and hear what you actually think.
You can write down what you want to achieve today, this week, this year. Calmly, without rushing.
You can train before anyone asks you for anything.
You can read, and what you read actually stays.
You can put two hours into what matters, the thing that is never urgent and so never gets done, before the noise starts.
At night you manage the day that already happened. In the morning you design the one that is coming.
It is not about sleeping less
I want to stop here for a moment, because this is where almost everyone gets it wrong.
Getting up at five does not mean sleeping five hours and bragging about it. That isn’t discipline. It is a slow way of damaging your health, your mood and your decisions.
It is about moving the hours, not cutting them.
If you want to get up at five and still sleep seven or eight hours, the maths is very simple: you need to be in bed around half past nine or ten.
And that is the real decision. It isn’t «will I get up at five?». It is:
«Am I willing to give up my evenings?»
Because the three morning hours don’t come out of nowhere. They are taken from the night. They are exactly the same three hours, moved somewhere else.
Same time. Same sleep. A different life.
My mother’s card game
Let me tell you something about my mother. I love her dearly, and that is exactly why I allow myself to tell it.
My mother wakes up tired. Almost every day.
And almost every day she asks herself the same thing: «Why am I so tired, when I haven’t done anything?»
I know the answer. So does she, even if she doesn’t like it.
At night, when everyone else has gone to bed, my mother plays chinchón on her phone. It is a Spanish card game, a bit like rummy.
«Just a little while,» she says.
The little while is two hours.
And she doesn’t do it out of addiction, let me be clear. She does it because it is the part of the day she enjoys most. It is quiet, nobody needs anything from her, she wins a few, loses a few, gets competitive. It is her moment.
I completely understand it. I really do.
But then she goes to bed at one. She sleeps worse, because her head is still dealing cards. She wakes up tired. That day she has less energy to go for a walk, to cook something good, to meet a friend. And that night, since she is tired and the day was flat, what does she feel like doing most?
Exactly. One little game.
That isn’t a bad day. It is a loop.
And the funniest part is that when she wonders why she is tired, she goes over everything she did during the day and forgets the one thing that explains it: the two hours of chinchón.
Let’s do some quick maths my mother won’t enjoy.
Two hours a day is 730 hours a year.
That is thirty full days. A whole month, day and night, playing chinchón.
If my mother read this, she would say: «Son, but I like it.»
And she would be right. She likes it.
But liking something doesn’t mean it is good for you at that hour.
The most beautiful excuse in the world
We all have our own chinchón.
For some it is the series. For others it is football, endless scrolling, the beer at eleven, or «checking a couple of work things» that turn into two hours of email.
And nearly all of us defend it with the same sentence:
«It’s the part of the day I enjoy most.»
It is the most beautiful excuse in the world, because it is true. And that is exactly what makes it so dangerous.
Enjoying yourself is fine. Resting is fine. A good life needs play, laughter, bad TV and card games. Not everything is work, and it shouldn’t be. I said it in the last chapter and I stand by it.
But if your favourite moment of the day is precisely the one that steals your sleep, your energy and the next morning, it may be worth asking whether you are really enjoying it or just using it to avoid thinking.
The maths almost nobody does
Now let’s talk about something that matters to a lot of people who read me: money, and the freedom to one day stop working because you have to.
If you want to be able to retire at forty or fifty, or simply work because you want to and not because you must, you will need to build something. A business, a very well-paid career, assets, a skill the market pays a lot for.
And building something like that takes hours. Quality hours, with a fresh head and no interruptions.
Three hours a day from five to eight is more than 1,000 hours a year.
With a thousand hours a year you can learn a language, build a side business, write a book, get into the best shape of your life or become really good at what you do.
And you are not taking them from your family, your job or your rest.
You are taking them from the card game.
«But I’m not a morning person»
I know. I have heard it a thousand times. And it may well be true.
Some people work nights, work shifts, or have babies who decide for everyone what time the house goes to sleep. And some people genuinely do their best work late. Not everyone works the same way, and that is fine.
If that is you, the idea still applies. It isn’t about the clock. It is about this:
your best hours have to go to what matters most, not to what costs the least.
But I ask you one thing before you decide you are «not a morning person»: actually test it. Two weeks. Going to bed early, no screen in bed. A lot of people who say they aren’t morning people are really just night people with a phone.
How to start without dying in the attempt
You don’t need to set the alarm for five tomorrow. That usually lasts three days and comes with a terrible mood.
Do it like this:
- Start with the night, not the morning. The morning is won the night before. Set a time to get into bed and respect it the way you would respect an important meeting.
- Take the phone out of the bedroom. Buy a ten-euro alarm clock. It is the best-value purchase you will make this year.
- Move it half an hour earlier each week. If you get up at half past seven today, next week make it seven. Then half past six. No heroics.
- Decide the night before what you will do in the morning. If you wake up with no plan, you will end up on your phone. Leave your training clothes out, the book ready, the document open.
- Protect the first hour. No email, no social media, no news. That hour is yours. The rest of the world can wait sixty minutes.
- Don’t punish yourself when a day goes wrong. One bad day doesn’t break a habit. Giving up does.
This chapter’s deal
Remember the contract from chapter 1? Every chapter, at least one action. One, not ten.
This one is very simple:
Tonight, choose what time you go to bed. And stick to it.
Not what time you will get up. What time you will go to bed.
Write it down. Set an alarm to remind you. And when it goes off, even if you are halfway through a game, an episode or an argument on the internet, leave your phone outside the room.
Tomorrow, when you wake up a little earlier and the house is quiet, stay still for five minutes and notice how it feels.
That calm isn’t a luxury for a handful of strange early risers.
It is the hour of the day when people build the life everyone else only imagines.
And it is available to you tomorrow at five.
Your turn. What is your chinchón? Tell me in the comments, and what time you are going to bed tonight. I promise not to tell your mother.
Episode 3 is coming soon.
