The 4% Fix

Karma Brown

• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781443458634
• Topic: Persönliche Entwicklung
• Subtopic: Zeitmanagement

How to find guilt-free time for what you really want to do, and why it matters

• Do you feel like you're always busy, even as your to-do list continues to grow?
• Do you think you can't keep up as it is, let alone add another thing to your plate?

An award-winning journalist, avid reader and new mom, Karma Brown dreamed of writing her first novel. But between diapers and tight deadlines, how could she? Like so many of us, she felt stretched taut and hyper-scheduled, her time a commodity over which she had lost control. For Brown, the answer to this problem was to rise earlier every day and use that time to write. Although she experienced missteps along the way, after committing to her alarm clock and an online community of early risers, she completed a debut novel that became a national bestseller.

In The 4% Fix, Karma Brown reveals the latest research about time management and goal-setting and shares strategies that have worked for her as well as for others. Refreshingly, her jargon-free approach doesn't include time-tracking spreadsheets, tips on how to squeeze in yoga exercises while cooking dinner, or methods that add bulk to those never-ending lists.

How will you use this one hour—only 4% of your day—to change your life?

Part One: Own Your Time (Or It Will Own You)

Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.

—ANNE LAMOTT

You Need a (Good) Reason to Get Out of Bed

I believe every human has a finite number of heartbeats. I don’t intend to waste any of mine.

—NEIL ARMSTRONG

In 2014 Helen Costa-Giles, a Canadian who now lives in Texas, was a 35-year-old mom of two who, at five feet tall and 200 pounds, was considered morbidly obese. After a doctor’s visit, where she learned her weight was setting her up for a lifetime of chronic health problems, Helen knew she had to make a change. She started a workout regimen with her husband, but after her first burpee (an effective though torturous exercise that is part push-up, part squat, part plank, part hell, all wrapped into one movement)—when she couldn’t get off the ground—she decided to never exercise again.

However, she remained committed to her health, so she put the exercise on hold to focus on nutrition. After six months, she had lost close to 90 pounds and started HIIT (high-intensity interval training) workouts—at 4 a.m., because that was the only time she could fit exercise into her busy day. A chronic “everyone else gets their oxygen masks first” sort, Helen realized it was time for her to start making her health and fitness a priority.

She spent that first 4% of every day working out in her garage, the sky pitch black and the neighbourhood quiet. But while she was seeing results, she was also lonely. So she went onto her homeowners association page on Facebook and wrote, “I’m going to work out at 4 a.m. if anyone wants to join me.” The following morning a neighbour showed up, and they took pictures to post to the Facebook page. The next day another neighbour came to Helen’s garage at 4 a.m. Helen kept posting pictures, and people kept showing up.

“They wanted accountability as much as I did,” Helen said. “But they also wanted community.” And with that the No More Excuses Rise N Grind workout group was formed.

After a year—with 15 to 20 people dedicating early mornings to boot camp workouts—things got too big and loud for Helen’s garage, so they moved the workouts to a local school. People were driving up to 40 minutes before the sun rose for these sessions, and soon enough other workout groups began popping up in garages in nearby neighbourhoods. What had started as one woman searching for a way to stay committed to a fitness routine had morphed into a movement that spread far beyond Helen’s garage.

For Helen, who now runs the lifestyle coaching business NME Lifestyle—and whose story has been featured on People.com and CNN—life has completely changed. “Six years ago, I would have been that person who said, ‘I’ll never be a 5 a.m. person. I’ll never lose 90 pounds. I’ll never be on CNN.’” Though now she takes rest days from exercise as needed, she’s always up early, using that first 4% of her day for journaling, reading, even resting in the hammock and daydreaming about future goals. Helen’s driving point, and one she models daily, is that we need to show up for ourselves . . . even if it means getting up at an hour we previously viewed as “off limits.” And as a postscript to this story, it should be noted that every workout Helen has programmed for the past four years has contained burpees.

Like Helen, I saw one of my early-morning endeavours morph into a career, but I didn’t grow up wanting to be a writer. Although I was always a voracious reader, a career in writing never occurred to me. Sure, hints of my future can be found throughout memories of my younger years: I wrote picture books of ice-skating elephants in love, and a particularly tense story of two BFF mice who had a falling out (don’t worry, it had a happy ending). But even when I went back to school for journalism after five years in the corporate world, I never envisioned becoming a writer. I planned on a career in broadcasting—to become the “Katie Couric of the North”—and whenever anyone asked about my lofty writing goals, I would huff, irritably, and say, “[For the last time] I don’t want to be a writer.”

Then came April 10, 2003. You know when someone has a life-altering experience and she refers to the two parts of her life as “Before” and “After”? That’s precisely what happened to me.

On April 9, 2003, I was a healthy, 30-year-old woman—a vegetarian who worked out most days of the week—who was finishing up her journalism school. On April 11, 2003, I got a bone marrow biopsy and had my first CT scan, because the routine follow-up appointment I’d gone to the day before had been anything but. I had non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Cancer.

I was lucky for three reasons: one, I was young, so my body would likely handle treatments better; two, I was diagnosed super-early—another reason to feel hopeful; and three, as a Canadian, I had access to world-class health care. Within the year, I was finished treatment, in remission, and trying to figure out what came next. Turns out, being diagnosed with a life-threatening illness is terrifying but also, perhaps expectedly, life-affirming. Priorities go through a high-level re-org and nothing looks quite the same afterwards. But most relevant to our discussion here, it wasn’t all bad news: I realized being an anchor, or trying to become one, was not the life I wanted after all, because it would pull me away from the things and the people I cared about most. So, plot twist, I became a writer.

Initially I wrote marketing and communications copy. Then, as I flexed my writer muscles and daydreamed about what came next, I started pitching magazines. I pushed myself more, deciding with stunning naïveté that it might be time to write a novel. With a journalism degree and a handful of bylines, I figured storytelling was storytelling: short form, long form, novel length. How different could it be? News flash: very.

Undeterred by what I didn’t yet know, I immersed myself in novel writing. And as the number of pages grew, so did the significance of the project. Cancer had taken much away from me, but in return it offered two critical things:

1. I had to take my goals (a.k.a. myself) seriously, or I would never get serious about accomplishing them.
2. I wanted to leave behind a legacy for my daughter, and the idea of a published novel she could reach for—tangible and in my “voice”—seemed perfect.

Of course, dreaming of the thing and doing the thing are quite different beasts. But I’m one of those “finish what you start” types, so I stuttered and stumbled along over the next couple of years. Eventually, I wrote “The End” on that novel and . . . it sucked. Big time. But it was done, it was mine, and I could (and would) do better next time. And just like that, my “I don’t want to be a writer” mantra morphed into “I am a writer.”

I’m now the bestselling author of five novels and have a stack of magazines with stories that carry my byline, one of which won a National Magazine Award. What began as a “let’s see what happens” project has blossomed into a fulfilling career that is robust and fun and, thankfully, still feels limitless—oh, and mostly happens before the rest of you get out of bed for the day. But this didn’t transpire only because I set an alarm and diligently rose at 5 a.m. It’s because of what I chose to do once I got out of bed.

There’s a concept called ikigai (pronounced “eye-ka-guy”)—it’s a Japanese term that essentially means “find your reason.” The concept originated in Okinawa, a Japanese island that is said to have the world’s largest population of centenarians. Ikigai is about balancing passion, joy, and purpose . . . and the understanding that everything we do is connected. And specific to our conversation here, it’s the belief that you need a good reason to get out of bed (outside of paying bills or tending children). Basically, if you’re going to rise early, have something waiting on the other side of the alarm that is exciting and motivating. Whatever it is must be more enticing than snuggling deeper under the covers.

In the beginning, Helen’s ikigai was a complete health transformation so she could be around long-term for her family. Mine was finishing my novel, for the personal reasons listed above. Once I achieved that first goal, my ikigai shifted from “writing a book” to “writing a book that doesn’t suck.”

Think about what makes you tick and what your own ikigai might be. It’s okay not to have an obvious and actionable answer at the moment. The point here is not perfection but rather to engage in a simple thought exercise. So, let me ask you, “What’s worth getting out of bed for?”

The First 4%

Eat a live frog first thing in the morning, and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.

—MARK TWAIN

One morning in July 1981 my parents woke us up at 3 a.m. and told us to get in the rowboat. We were at our cottage, a rustic cabin my parents had built on a serene and secluded lake. My sister and I tried desperately to keep our eyes open as our parents rowed us into the middle of the lake to watch the lunar eclipse. I distinctly remember feeling groggy and annoyed—the way only a nine-year-old can—about my parents’ insistence this was a “not to be missed” experience. The lake, deep and black, was smooth as glass. The only sound around us came from the rowboat’s oars, squeaking as they dipped in and out of the water. Soon my dad stopped rowing and put the anchor down, and I remember seeing the glow of the eclipse, the way it was reflected back in the lake’s surface.

“That’s cool,” I said, yawning wide. At that point I was ready to go back to bed—until I heard the first splash. Suddenly, fish were jumping all around us. A couple even landed in the boat, right at our feet. For two kids who spent hours dangling hand-caught bait from fishing rods, waiting for the fish to nibble, this felt miraculous. It was also somewhat alarming, just how many fish were jumping in and around the boat, but it was one of the most memorable experiences I’ve ever had. Something that wouldn’t have happened if my parents hadn’t dragged us out of bed in the middle of the night. Because by 8 a.m., a more regular wake-up time, everything was ordinary again. The eclipse was over, the fish back to hanging out well below the surface and impervious to our squirming worms, and the magical moments of that middle-of-the-night expedition a memory.

About 27 years passed between that rowboat eclipse and when I started waking up early to harness the morning’s solitude for my first writing project. But in some ways my current 5 a.m. writing time is no less magical than watching those fish jump into our boat. I’m continually amazed by how much I can accomplish on a project that is meaningful to me before the rest of my house (and to a larger extent, my world) wakes up.

Before I started writing at the crack of dawn, that first 4% of my day was occupied by chaotic minutia. Think sipping coffee while blow-drying my hair, and dressing while simultaneously catching up on email. Or flying out the door with a minute to spare, a commute-ready toasted bagel in hand. My days are no less chaotic—in fact, the addition of a kid into the mix makes everything more chaotic—but now the first hour of my day is decidedly calmer. It might be early, but it’s sublime . . . and it’s all mine.

I understand that you might not be ready to come join me at 5 a.m. . . . yet. You might agree that this hour is a time of day to be cherished, but only because you get to spend it in bed. Sleep is necessary; no arguments there. However. However . . .

Consider what you might be missing out on. What opportunities live on the other side of your alarm clock? What experiences could you rack up—big and small—with the decision to give yourself a previously untapped chunk of time each and every day?

I would not have five novels published—including a #1 bestseller—without my 5 a.m. writing habit. It’s that black and white. I realize, however, this may not be the case for everyone or for every endeavour. I have failed book projects in the mix, including ones that remain incomplete or are just plain terrible, even when I’ve diligently risen early and done everything right. Things don’t always go smoothly, even after you’re an “expert.”

However, I’m unwilling to give up that first 4% of my day because something didn’t go according to plan—I’ve bought the lifetime membership. Becoming a card-carrying member of this 4% Fix Club does take some rejigging, so let’s focus on a trial membership for starters. Rather than committing to an early wake-up five to seven days a week, you could give one morning a try. And if that doesn’t reduce you to a soggy, exhausted puddle, try the same thing again the following week . . . and so on, and so on. After all, if it doesn’t work out, you can always go back to bed.

In my former corporate life, I worked for a husband-and-wife team who were wildly successful and also quite eccentric. They employed a life/spiritual coach, and one of the things this coach prescribed was “egg cleansing.” Basically, as I remember it being explained, eggs—like, chicken eggs you buy at the grocery store—have the power to siphon out a person’s negative energy. After it does its job, this “negativity egg”—which only a short time before was a regular chicken egg ready to ...