Experimenting with mornings

Posted on November 20th, 2010 by Sacha Chua

Here’s my approximate sleep data for the past week, tracked with the free “Sleep on It” app I installed on my iPod Touch.


	Woke up	Slept
November 13		1:30 AM the next day
November 14	7:54 AM	11:14 PM
November 15	7:09 AM	8:45 PM
November 16	6:50 AM	9:23 PM
November 17	5:32 AM	9:06 PM
November 18	5:05 AM	9:34 PM
November 19	5:00 AM

I switched back to an early-morning schedule, and I really like it. Let’s see how wonderful it can be if I can tweak things further!

What’s working well?

I set my cellphone alarm a few minutes after my iPod Touch alarm. Then I put my cellphone on the drawers in the hallway. Tada! Social obligation to get out of bed AND deal with cats, instead of just reaching for the oh-so-handy snooze button.

Also, I made several lists. Here they are:

Things not worth staying up late for: Browsing the Web (it will still be there tomorrow). Reading books (ditto, save it for lunch).	Things worth waking up early for: Writing. Drawing. Hacking, particularly because I can get lots of momentum and make tons of progress before our 10 AM update.
Things worth staying up late for: Social interaction. Laying the groundwork for a productive morning (setting clothes out, etc.)	Things not worth waking up early for: casual web browsing. Hitting the snooze button.

This classification makes it easier for me to put away my computer and get ready for a 9-ish bedtime. (Yes, I’m often in bed before J-.) It also helps me use my morning time more productively. I didn’t get up early just to spend hours on iCanHasCheezburger.com! (Besides, it only takes me a few minutes to see the latest cat pictures…)

I haven’t run into problems with afternoon fatigue. It might be the way I switch between different kinds of tasks I enjoy, and it might be that I eat a light lunch and I have snacks.

There are still a few things to work out. Commuting to work means interrupting flow, although if I wake up early enough, I can get a chunk of time. When I go into productive hacking mode so that I can check off lots of tasks before our morning status update, I find it hard to make time for my hobbies during the regular workday, because people come in with interesting requests. And then there’s syncing up with W-, who’s more of a night owl, but that’s where shared activities and routines can help.

If you’re experimenting with waking up earlier, maybe social obligations and self-reminders can help you too. I’ll keep you posted as I learn and experience more!

More posts about: highlight, kaizen, life, productivity // 3 Comments »

Short URL: http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21891

http://baonkobento.wordpress.com Patricia

I have the same problem with mornings/scheduling in general. It was relatively better a few months ago when I was required to report for work at 8 or 9am. Now that it got pushed back to 10am, I find that I still need to wake up as early as 6am to compensate for the horrible morning commute. Because the going home commute is even worse, I lost the time I usually have after work to work out at the gym. Still looking for an effective rescheduling of my day, without reducing my time with my daughter and husband who are -both- night owls.

I am looking forward to your updates!
http://sachachua.com Sacha Chua

We work on making our shared times better: weekends and early evenings. Sometimes J-’s working on her homework, and W- and I help her. W- and I also enjoy cooking together. We do most errands together, too. We occasionally check if we’re going out of sync, too. So far, fantastic. =)

Good luck! (… and good luck with that commute! =| )
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