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I'm one of those unlucky types that have the hardest time waking up and getting going in the morning. Mentally I'm at 50% or less. Is there anyone else like this who's found techniques or other methods of overcoming the slow start?
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> Most people have highly adaptable bodies and can train themselves to be a "morning person". I disagree. If it were that simple (with some work, obviously), more would easily be able to train themselves to be "night people" to work overnight shifts. And my experience working nights disagreed. Some folks just cannot handle the sleep and waking times of the shift, others get to a point that they have trouble being pro…
Shifting your wake-up time by a few hours is a totally different story from being nocturnal.
Here I thought I'd be getting some validation for being a night owl. 4 AM is my most productive hour. It's just that I haven't gone to bed yet then. What's this "up before the sun rises" stuff? It's productive because the day is just coming to a close.
I wish I could sleep in until sunrise. That would mean quite a lot of sleep during winter ^_^ https://www.google.se/search?hl=en&q=sunrise+in+lule%C3%A5+a...
This has come at a cost.
- I need to get 6 hours sleep, so a 3-4am wakeup requires a 9-10pm bedtime. If I don't plan for this, the worst thing happens, which is 2 hours of alarms as I don't get out of bed until 7.
- I can't survive after a drinking binge. No more than 2 or 3 drinks the night before, and ideally 0.
- It doesn't always jive with family who are night owls.
This isn't how I lived in my 20s, but it works for me now. In my 20s there was still a decent chance of good things happening at 1am. Now there is rarely anything that happens from 10pm to 1am that I miss. :-)
For anyone deciding if it's worth clicking through: it's mostly a list of anecdotes about early-riser CEOs & people who workout as soon as they wake up. I didn't see anything about those who work through the night. [I personally find 4am is often productive for me, but that's because I work at night, and I'll only continue coding at 4am if I'm already in the zone. If I'm not making progress, I'll want to crash to sle…
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As a normally decidedly non-morning person, getting up really early (2-4am) works surprisingly well for me. Allows for a really slow, but stress-free morning, which leads to a more productive rest of the day. The hardest part (for me) is realizing that yes, I have done enough and am tired, and should not power through an evening-low and stay up until after midnight. YMMV of course, but getting up really early might n…
As a non-morning person, waking up before 8AM usually ensures that I am absolutely dog tired by mid afternoon (~2-3PM) and completely non-productive from 5PM onward. Waking up at 4AM would mean that time-frame moves up another 3 hours and I would have to finish doing everything I need to during the day by 2-3PM and most jobs would generally look down upon that. > YMMV of course, but getting up really early might not…
When I go to bed late and wake up late, however, there is no such "miserable" time period.
That said, if I go to bed later than 2-3AM, I'll feel tired the next day.
In the quiet and still of the morning, tucked into a muffled corner of my couch, with hot coffee and cream at-hand, I set about a detailed refactoring of my home project that I had been planning.
Once I got in my groove, I found I was starting medium-sized tasks that I would normally hesitate to start because I couldn't get them done in one sitting. Not only was I completing these tasks quickly, but I was making mental leaps that turned out to be correct in-hindsight once the refactoring was done.
I'm normally overworked and have much less energy to develop to my home project. It is pleasant to develop code on a full mental tank of gas, especially when it's my IP.
Wow, remind me not to hire you for a job then. As an employer I am paying you to put my work ahead of yours. I am paying you to be productive so that with the collective production of the employees, the company can outmaneuver the competition. This lackadaisical approach and work-ethic means that, of course the mile high task list will always be there. It'll never ever get done!
Here I thought I'd be getting some validation for being a night owl. 4 AM is my most productive hour. It's just that I haven't gone to bed yet then. What's this "up before the sun rises" stuff? It's productive because the day is just coming to a close.
Once when I was in my early 20s I had a magical period of 2-3 months where there was no work, no school, and not really even social or family obligations. I would go bed when I was tired and wake up when I woke up. What I found was that every night I stayed up about an hour later than the night before. After 24 days my sleeping cycle went lapped the clock. At the time I interpreted it as, biologically I had a 25 hour cycle. No idea if that was true or not. Probably not. Regardless, if left to my own devices I always tend to stay up into the wee hours.
If there's an opposite of a morning person, I'm it. My entire life, I've felt completely wrecked after waking up, and it takes up to an hour to feel awake and alert. I get progressively more productive until it's time to go to bed again. Apparently it's the other way around for most people.
I recently started waking up at 4 a.m and go to bed at 8-9pm. It has done wonders for my life. I realized I was confusing my personal task list with my work task list - the two should not be confused. I complete all my personal tasks in the morning, such as, studying a new language, practicing a musical instrument, learning to draw, and a couple other skills I want to learn and improve. Then when I'm worn out and it'…
Some years ago I started my day at 4 a.m. to exercise. While it worked, this kept me from having any social life outside from talking to coworkers. Getting a drink with friends in the afternoon is impossible if you want to keep this schedule, so I stopped. Being productive isn't everything in life. I'm only 30 but I doubt I will ever look back wishing I worked harder alone in my room instead of being with my friends.
“Looking back over a life of hard work … my only regret is that I didn’t work even harder.” - H. L. Mencken
Sorry, I don't mean to troll, I just dislike the strawman argument of "[being productive/working/etc] isn't everything in life."