At Home with Tech

If you want to use early mornings during vacation days to nurture the buds of your creativity, you have to be awake. Here’s one way to ensure that happens by using your Apple Watch.

I’ve been asked where I find the time to write this weekly blog. My secret is I work on it during my ‘magic hour.’ That’s the sixty minutes or so in the mornings before the rest of my family wakes up. Not only is it exclusively my own, interrupted time, but my brain is fresh and clear. Most importantly, my creative self is fully active, and my writing just flows.

My magic hour begins at 5:30am with my cup of Joe, and I have a date with myself every morning that I never break. It’s my most productive time of the entire day, and I use it for any number of computer-based projects, including my writing.

Vacation Planning
When my family and I go on vacation, yes, I still take my intentions for my morning creative time with me. But our schedule does shift a bit, and everyone sleeps a little later, myself included. I could easily sleep away that ‘me time,’ but as long as I recalibrate when I wake up in relationship to everyone else, I don’t lose my magic hour.

The challenge is ensuring I get up, and that can be difficult when I want to wake up later than when my internal clock tells me to. That’s because when I sleep in, there’s no way to know exactly when I’ll complete my next sleep cycle.

Setting a wake-up alarm on my iPhone is, of course, the obvious solution. But when my family is sleeping in the same hotel room, an alarm is going to wake everyone up. Even the light buzzing sounds of a vibrating alarm on my iPhone could wake up my son. (He can be a light sleeper right before the sun rises.)

So how do I get just myself up to greet my magic hour while on vacation?

I use the silent alarm with haptic feedback on my Apple Watch.

Happy with Haptic Feedback
For those who don’t yet happily live in the world of haptic technology, it’s simply my Apple Watch vibrating on my wrist to silently communicate with me. Sometimes it taps a couple of times to indicate I’ve received a text. A more insistent vibration sequence happens when I get a call. And yes, there’s an alarm vibration which will wake me up.

It’s brilliant.

So, that’s the way I start my mornings on vacation exactly when I want without disturbing the rest of my family.

Don’t Forget to Recharge
The only issue with my silent alarm plan is I need to wear my Apple Watch throughout the night. And that’s the time I would normally be charging it up. So I can’t forget to time shift that important refueling.

The good news is it doesn’t take too long. I can usually get back to 100% during breakfast, before we all leave for our day of fun.

Always Feed your Creative Self on Vacation
I know vacations are supposed to offer a break from your daily routine. But for me, I like to bring my magic hour with me wherever I go. And a scheduled tactile reminder, courtesy of my Apple Watch, is all it takes to ensure I begin my vacation mornings exactly the way I want.