Ask HN: What's your working day like?

Profession: Program/Analyst & Full-Time Student (40 hrs, ~13 hrs, respectively)

Example of one of my longer days:

[6:15] Alarm Goes Off

[6:16] Second Alarm Goes Off

[6:20] Second rounds of alarms going off, finally get up - hygiene stuff, take 200mg caffeine [3 wk on|1 wk off]/200mg L-Theanine to maintain the schedule throughout the week

[7:00] In the office, checking blogs, HN, Reddit, podcasts, etc.

[7:30] Finish up anything left over from the previous days, check work calendar, update desk calendar with upcoming due dates, tests, etc. for school

[7:45] People arriving in the office, a lot of noise

[8:15] Daily stand-up

[8:30] Focus in on tasks and begin working on them and fixing any bugs a user has pointed out

[9:45] Get ready to go to class, check HN once again

[3:00] Back in the office, might have a meeting, otherwise continue working on projects

[5:00] Almost everyone is out of the office, peace and quiet enues

[5:15] Office is empty - turn on a twitch stream for some background noise, and focus on stories for my project

[7:00] Eat dinner/get dinner at the office

[8:00] Prepare to go home, close out any tasks or bugs that have been fixed in the past couple of hours

[8:30] Get home and browse reddit/HN for a bit

[9:00] Turn on a game or TV show to unwind with, do homework, contemplate outstanding bugs from work

[12:00] Realize how late it is and how 24 hours ago I said I wouldn't stay up this late anymore, go lay in bed for 30 minutes thinking about school and work, eventually drift off

Profession: software engineer, building SaaS and mobile apps, as well as part-time contracting (remote)

[04:00] wake up (I only need 6h of sleep; attempted uberman sleep schedule in the past but incompatible with social life first time around, with family life in recent years)

[04:05] drink water, meditate, blue light therapy in winter months, drink green tea, read personal email, check the weather and comics (avoid the news); look at plan for the day (prepared in the evening)

[04:30] make latte, go to standing desk in home office, work on SaaS, email communication with my dev+sales team, focus on marketing

[06:30] greet and gently wake wife and two daughters (ages 8 and 2); tell them what weather to expect, so they dress appropriately; prepare breakfast table for everybody: fresh fruits, nuts, berries

[06:45] return to SaaS work

[07:40] exit home office, load daughters into car, drive to their two schools (switching to single school in the Fall, 5-minutes away from home), listening to audiobook of their choice, or classical music; yell at dangerous drivers

[08:30] back to home office; switch to (remote) contracting work, read business email once, eat quick lunch away from desk; regularly step outside to breathe and appreciate nature (pull weeds, sit in the sun, observe plant growth); check HN front-page twice, in case there is something relevant to my streams of work (open tabs for delayed reading)

[15:00] pick up one or other daughter from school; twice a week, aikido practice at dojo with elder daughter, otherwise return home, leisure time with wife and daughters

[17:00] prepare dinner, usually grilling, enjoy a glass of wine with wife, listen to daughter's wild stories, insist on proper table etiquette, abandon all pretense of control

[18:30] put daughters on path to bed, laugh, read books, insist on personal routines

[19:30] clean up kitchen, living room, and play room; review the day, journal, plan the next day; read

[21:00] talk and/or stream series (or half-movie) with wife

[22:00] go to bed

Twice a week, play soccer 1h with friends either at noon or early morning (indoors during winter). Three times a week, 45m weight lifting while reading previously-opened tabs from HN. Once each weekend, 1h mowing lawn and yardwork while listening to podcast. Once a week, 5am-meeting with my coach. On weekends my Saas work ends by 7am, when I go groceries shopping for the week; the rest of the weekend days are spent playing with the girls, culture outings, board games, etc. Every Sunday, review the week, plan the next (setting my compass according to quarterly goals); once a month, review progress on my quarterly goals, revise them or set new ones for the next quarters. Every few weeks, cook dinner for friends. Every quarter, host a season-driven party (equinox, midsummer, equinox, Lucia/Xmas). 2-3 times a year take full week off with family, without work.

I am a total nerd/geek. A 6'2" 215lb dyed-in-the-wool technology buff. While I enjoy hard blue collar work, I also enjoy chilling in front of a computer. I have some idea that, perhaps, someday I can try my hand at getting paid to code... or just contribute to OSS in a meaningful way, which I have done from time to time. Hopefully to better the fire/ems service or pre-hospital stuff. Or just scrape the shit out of the web for profit... lol.

Not op but I started waking up at 6:00 starting with this year to work on personal projects in the morning for up to an hour. My sleep quality got much better, I'm usually in bed around 23:00, the biggest difference I noticed is that I'm falling asleep in less than 10 minutes after I lie down.

As a side note: I noticed that having proper supply of Magnesium seems to help me a lot to wake up in the mornings.