I'm enamored with starting my days at 4 AM — even on weekends like today. (It's currently 4:19 AM as I type this.) I want to get into a good habit of being an "early riser", which is sort of a diametrical shift from how I used to stay up late. I'm a born night owl, but when I look at my life now, I'll still be up at much of the same times — just looking in from the other side.
Why did I decide to do this? I'd say an encouraging thrust came from the Zen Habits site (complete with Web 2.0 reflection as my wife pointed out), which is frequently cited by my fave, Lifehacker. Leo (the site's author) penned a post titled "10 Benefits of Rising Early, and How to Do It". By the time I got to the end of it, I couldn't resist anymore. (Not that I struggled much to begin with.)
During the week at work, past tense, I was frequently — wait, make that almost always — in a situation where I tend to get pinged or otherwise interrupted from what I'm doing to something I'm wanted to do. When I say "interrupted", I don't mean that as a bad thing, because I love to be flexible and help my coworkers out, especially when I have so many friendly, great ones who I know would help me in a pinch (and many have). But Linden Lab as a company has been growing so big, and we inevitably run into the situation where 1 person pinging me doesn't know of the other 4 also asking for my attention at the same time. This includes both Linden coworkers and Residents in our community. It does get tiresome for this to happen a lot, and I found myself unable to concentrate. Thus, rather than ask other people to change their schedules, I've adapted mine.
Waking at 4 AM means I can potentially get 4 hours or more of solid work — that's half a workday, with the added focus and drive! — done before things start getting busy and my attention starts getting called away to other projects. It also gives me quiet(er) time to explore inworld, which I've wanted to take advantage of, since lately, I haven't as much as I've wanted. There are so many tasks which really benefit from that "stick with it and keep going" flow, from answering email to triage on the Issue Tracker, and the best time to make that happen for me is clearly the early morning.
By the way, I don't usually take lunch breaks either, but I don't feel rushed. I nibble little chunks so I don't feel bloated, and continue to work. Sometimes I'll go outside and stretch, then return to the computer.
One drawback might be when I have meetings later in the day (like 3-4 PM) and end up having to actually stay later for work, but what's conducive is since I'm working from home, I can get other things done in the meantime. Often, they tend to directly relate to my work anyway, because I'm involved in Second Life a lot. What's also nice is by the time those meetings roll around, odds are much higher I've already completed a good chunk of what I intended to do that day, so my mind feels freer and I don't stray into something I was supposed to do earlier.
Sleeping at around 11 PM (hoping to make that even earlier if 5-6 hrs. isn't enough) and rising at 4 AM is still a new thing to me, and I'm going to adapt it as I go along. We'll see how that goes. As with any useful life system, tools help facilitate the process. For example, I have my MacBook Pro by my bed, and it serves as an alarm clock. I use the free, fantastic Alarm Clock 2, which has configurable alarms that can be set for different times on different days. It can play a song from your iTunes library which fades in gradually; I was previously using The Contrast's "Days Go By" (appropriate subject matter), but I've since switched to "Dune (Desert Theme)" from the eponymous movie, by Toto. I love it. It's so motivational, sweeping, and really helps me get pumped up.
Are you a night owl? Early riser? Something else altogether? What habits help you have productive, fulfilling, happy days? Let me know in the comments.
{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
I think neither. I go to sleep at 10:40PM, and wake up arount 7:15AM. For my age (14), that still pretty early to be waking up at in the summer, on a weekend.
But, I switch baised on what I feel like. I can slide 1 hour up, or one hour down, and wake up at wither 6:00AM, or 8:00AM. Without an alarm. But, if I need to wake up before 6:00AM, then I loose sleep, because I can't go to sleep any earlier.
It works out usually, I hardly need alarms these days though.
I read that article when it was posted on LH too and since I've been trying to get up eariler as well. What I'm doing is trying to train myself gradually. Each evening I set my alarm clock back another 10 or 20 minutes earlier until I get to around 6:30.
My main problem with all of this though is that I've been getting to bed late now, (SL ;P) hence my not aiming for a 4:30 wake-up call. Though I'm keeping it sort of flexible, i.e. last night I went to bed at 2am, so I let mysoelf sleep to 9am, instead of getting up at 7:30. But as long as I'm up before 9:30 I feel pretty good. Anything later seems like wasted time now.
Retirees learn early (yes, moi) the advantages of early rising—most of which are not covered in your young friend Leo's list.
Here's the short list:
Last but not least, I feel an obligation to my younger work-a-day friends to give them those only times they have to move about by standing out of the way—because I can.
Viva early risers, and I have been one for the 10+ years I have been retired from the (official) workforce.
Oh, with no way to edit this comment (or preview it) my fingers are crossed all my little HTML bits are in the right places.
I am a creature of the night, but only because of my habit to postpone things. Like going to bed, for example. Or crawling out of bed. Working from the home hasn't really helped either…
I hope you have some vacations planned: mountains/lakes/no net connection…..;)
While you're away, you could have Nicholaz "The Mad Patcher" Beresford do you a random-login viewer to jaunt a torleybot around the grid rezzing watermelons shouting YAYZERAMA!
I have a 14 month old son. I don't get a choice.
Sounds like the ideal schedule, Torley. It would seem that Second Life is somehow being superimposed over your rl–which may not be a bad thing
Getting up at 4am to get your head straight and avoid the pings sounds like the right idea. You can even beat the birds that way. In fact, you should be able to hear the birdies come to life. It sounds like a very meditative time of day. You will flourish in this space. Hopefully you won't always have to use an alarm clock, though. Ideally, you'd want to wake up without an alarm clock, so you may have to start going to bed a little earlier so that you wake up [i]naturally[/i] at 4am. Then the juices should really start to flow…
Wowzerama, this post has resulted in some great comments! Thanks to each of you… like there are many hours in a day, sounds like we've got stages of human life well-represented here too:
@Ben: I remember the first time I stayed up until 3 AM or so, it was like I had attained some sort of lucid longevity. I felt so alive, and I feel that way again nowadays, waking up at 4 AM. Growing up you gotta get righteous sleep.
@Alexander: I'm such a Lifehacker fan, they're so wonderful. Nice people sharing all these productivity tips 'cross tha Intarweb. Sometimes I'm caught in a "crossfire" of sleeping later vs. waking up early, and I very deliberately have to pry myself away from the computer so I can get more sleep instead of letting the night drag on. Ongoing, shifting balance.
@Amras: Thanks for sharing your experienced insights and formatting them so nicely! (You got the HTML right on!) I've experienced #2 and #3 several times before: I like scheduling my life so my on-hours are most other people's off-hours. I don't like dead silent malls but I'm not fond of overly bustling, hectic jams either.
@Laetizia: Sometimes I find myself going back and forth and wonder "Should I stay up another 5, 10, 15 min.?" I wonder what would be an easier method to coax us into bed for those times when we want to sleep earlier. I was gonna say "sleeping pills" but I don't think they act that quickly, nor do I want to be chemically dependent!
@Benja: Yes, I do! Saving those up. Hahahaha oh gosh, did you tell Nicholaz that… that cracks me up. I hope said Torleybot isn't mistaken for a griefer.
@skribe: Awwwe. Congrats on your new son! I've never firsthand experienced being woken up by a child.
@Patrick: I live in a forest, so I can definitely hear birds, I think that's such a wonderful time. Part of waking up early reminds me of monks with discipline, and there are prolly a number of good reasons why they choose to rise to meet the sun. I like using an alarm now, pretty much because it plays the music from Dune I'm so fond of; I understand what you mean too.
=D
I can loan him to you if you're really desperate to find out =).
Torley – I'm so glad you posted this. I'm in the same situation right now.
I'll try the MBP alarm clock too!
Cheers
I like to stay up all night long and play Second Life, then sleep when I get to work. That's what I'd *like* to do, not what I really do! Lol.
/hugs
I'm a night owl as well. Perhaps something is twisted in my mind, but things inevitably go better if I do them at night.
Because of school schedule, I'm practically tired all the time. Soooo, when I need to get productive… I generally just skip training and extracurriculars and go home to sleep. I don't eat before sleep – otherwiise, I'll wake up sick. If I fall asleep at 5 PM, I'll wake up at about 10 or 11, and then I can begin working. I have the bad habit of logging on to MSN or SL or checking Flickr or YouTube or anything when I wake up
Eh. I think it got cut off. All I said afterwards, I think, is that it still takes me long to finish stuff because of my horrible concentration >.
@skribe: Thanks, but something tells me I'm not ready for parenthood.
@Tobin: You're super-welcome! Nice to see you here too.
@Seraphine: Hahahaa, what an order of things that'd be. Ever have a lucid dream? Those can really confuse what you think you're doing, if you're not paying attention.
@Mariel: One thing I enjoy about what you mentioned is I like to browse Flickr and YouTube a lot upon waking too, I often check 'em through http://www.popurls.com , which is a really compact, fun way to be informed of eclectic stuff happening in the world today that gets missed by the "mainstream media". Do you have a short attention span? I used to multitask more in my earlier years, but I have since practiced honing into working on a single task at a time, and doing it really well.
I am TERRIBLE at sitting down and studying if it's not languages. I've studied lang. related stuff for four hours straight, but I can't study anything else for more than 20 mins. I guess I will need to detach from comp. T_T
@Mariel: Does this mean you're a polyglot?
No. :p
It means I should have quit regular high school (or at least go to a way less demanding one) and devote mornings to finish English and French studies to begin learning other stuff, but now it's too late as there's only one year left u.u
I did get one mad grade that time, though xD
This is a test. Sorry about this Torley.