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Waking up at 5am to code

mattgreer.org

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Re: Waking up at 5am to code

#141

Post by pstuart »

eloisius wrote: post #127
nhashem wrote: post #92

A lot of commenters have talked about the pros of this routine, and there are many. Few interruptions, working while your mind is fresh, working within a regimen, etc. However, if you don't have an equivalent amount of discipline on at night to get enough rest, you will quickly burn yourself out. I did this routine for a lot of the second half of 2011, and since I'm a night owl by nature (going to bed at 12 midnight…

You should try taking 5mg of melatonin around 9pm. I have trouble falling asleep before 12-1am, too. Undeterred, I stay up too late every night working on whatever project I have and can't sleep because I'll lay awake thinking about it. If I take a melatonin I get the benefit of becoming inept at writing code by 10 and will be sound asleep before 11 and ready to wake up hours before I have to start my day.

My sleep doctor advised taking less, and earlier (1.5 mg around 5 or 6 pm).

Re: Waking up at 5am to code

#142

Post by samdelagarza »

Matt,

Thanks for sharing. I did the same for several months, I would call each session a mini iteration. And I kept a kanban board on my moleskine...which is imperative. I had times where other things would take precedence and I would stay away from my project for several days but due to my physical kanban I could easily pick up where i left off.

What I did different is this: at each iteration i would set a goal that I new I could accomplish within the mini-iteration (1-2 hours, sometimes a little more). Then at the end I would check off my accomplishments and would quickly "trim my backlog" and create a list of "NEXT:" for the next time. Then the next time I sat down I would review this list and adjust it as necessary and begin.

I found that have a physical notebook was beneficial because at the first sign of discouragement I could easily look back and see where I was just a few weeks ago or a few months ago. And nothing feels better than marking something complete. My lists are segmented by each iteration by day and have three categories: DONE, TODO, NEXT. it worked great for me.

Though I never delivered my product it was a great talking tool at an interview that led me to a job with a 30% pay increase. And I'm ok with this.

Re: Waking up at 5am to code

#143

Post by Frostbeard »

unreal37 wrote: post #39
Frostbeard wrote: post #15

I wish it were possible for me to do something like this during the week, but it isn't. I wake up at 05:30 as it is, and I'm out the door and heading to work by 06:30 (that's an hour to SSS, prepare and consume breakfast, take out the trash, scrape the windshield, and whatever else might need doing). I don't get home until after 17:30. I'm typically occupied being a loving and attentive father up until 20:00 or so. A…

A question. Your job takes 11 hours out of your day roughly. I assume you only work 7.5 or 8 hours like is standard. Does that mean you have a 1,5 hours each way commute (3 hours total)? So you spend 15 hours a week, or 70 hours a month commuting? Maybe you should move closer to work? Or work from home a few days a week if your job allows. I have a 5 minutes each way commute. I don't understand the voluntary 1.5 hour…

I actually live only 10km away from where I work, and my commute amounts to less than an hour per day.

I'm at the office by 0700 and I leave sometime after 1700. My work situation deviates significantly from a programmer's "standard" in a lot of respects, unfortunately. I do get paid for overtime at least, but I'm beginning to question whether it's worth it.

Re: Waking up at 5am to code

#144

Post by planetmcd »

notyourwork wrote: post #120
chris_dcosta wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a nihgt owl with kids. I've been living on the 1am to 6:30 express(o) train for the last 5 years, holding down a job too. It can be done, but you have to let yourself give-in sometimes. I hit a wall every three months or so and have one day where I crash at about 7:30 pm sleeping the whole night through. That's enough to recharge my batteries. Did I mention I'm no spring chicken either...

I can say from watching my father do this while I grew up that this is extremely unhealthy on the body. Sure you can do it, sure you can recharge every few many months but this will not work out in the long run. By that I mean accidents are looming when you live with this little sleep regularly. Trust me on this before its too late to say I wish I would have slept more.

There is strong evidence that links sleep deprivation over time, even minor, to long term health problems.

As someone who cut sleep for years (6 hours was normal in twenties and much of thirties), I can attest that at some point, it becomes difficult to operate on less sleep. If all of your coping strategies involve putting in more time (essentially at the expense of sleep), when you can no longer cut the sleep, you may be in a bind when that is no longer the corner that can be cut. Though not always, that point in time often coincides with when your parental commitments are at their peek as well, and as a parent, you probably shouldn't cut that corner. So what then...

Something like the Pomodoro method helped me alot.

Or just be really rich.

Re: Waking up at 5am to code

#146

Post by starwed »

steelaz wrote: post #117
nhashem wrote: post #92

A lot of commenters have talked about the pros of this routine, and there are many. Few interruptions, working while your mind is fresh, working within a regimen, etc. However, if you don't have an equivalent amount of discipline on at night to get enough rest, you will quickly burn yourself out. I did this routine for a lot of the second half of 2011, and since I'm a night owl by nature (going to bed at 12 midnight…

You couldn't bring yourself to sleep before midnight even when waking up at 5am on regular basis? I consider myself night owl too, nowadays I fall asleep at around 1am. But I used to work in construction, getting up at 5:30am every day and just after couple weeks of this routine, I would fall asleep at 10:00pm - 10:30pm, usually while watching TV :)

>I used to work in construction

This is why you were able to fall asleep! If I get up early (~6am) in the morning, my body just doesn't seem to care -- I won't fall asleep (or even feel truly tired) until about 2am.

Unless I actually do something physically taxing during the day.

Re: Waking up at 5am to code

#147

Post by brown9-2 »

nhashem wrote: post #92

A lot of commenters have talked about the pros of this routine, and there are many. Few interruptions, working while your mind is fresh, working within a regimen, etc. However, if you don't have an equivalent amount of discipline on at night to get enough rest, you will quickly burn yourself out. I did this routine for a lot of the second half of 2011, and since I'm a night owl by nature (going to bed at 12 midnight…

Just curious, but how much coffee is 400 mg of Caffeine? This would seem to be 2-4 regular size cups of coffee (http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/caffeine/AN01211).

Re: Waking up at 5am to code

#148

Post by beagle3 »

steelaz wrote: post #117
nhashem wrote: post #92

A lot of commenters have talked about the pros of this routine, and there are many. Few interruptions, working while your mind is fresh, working within a regimen, etc. However, if you don't have an equivalent amount of discipline on at night to get enough rest, you will quickly burn yourself out. I did this routine for a lot of the second half of 2011, and since I'm a night owl by nature (going to bed at 12 midnight…

You couldn't bring yourself to sleep before midnight even when waking up at 5am on regular basis? I consider myself night owl too, nowadays I fall asleep at around 1am. But I used to work in construction, getting up at 5:30am every day and just after couple weeks of this routine, I would fall asleep at 10:00pm - 10:30pm, usually while watching TV :)

I'm a night owl, and a few decades agoI was on a rigid Army training schedule for months at a time, where we would be released for the night around 1am-2am and already have roll call at 6:30am; I would still not fall asleep until 3-4 am. (This was not physical training, although we did do a short physical exercise daily, and a an hour long one three times a week)

My pre-army reserves carried me through the first 3 months, and then I would just uncontrollably crash for 20-30 minutes at lunch time. My eyesight deteriorated significantly (much improved after I started getting some sleep again, thankfully, but not as good as it used to be, unfortunately) and I'm sure my body was otherwise harmed, although I did have more waking hours than at any other time I can remember.

Re: Waking up at 5am to code

#149

Post by brown9-2 »

nickik wrote: post #122
wallunit wrote: post #118

Why is waking up two hours earlier in order to do stuff like coding on personal projects so much better than staying up for two more hours at night? It won't make the day longer. Each hour you wake up earlier you will also probably go to sleep earlier. Of course you could also sleep less, but also in that case IMHO it doesn't make a large difference whether you add those extra hours to your night or to your morning.…

I would guess the if you code in the night your 2h turn into 6h. While if you do 2h in the morning you have to stop and go to work.

I think this is the fundamental reason also. It's much easier to slip and add more hours to the end of the day than it is to wake up even earlier than 5am.

Re: Waking up at 5am to code

#150

Post by brown9-2 »

GigabyteCoin wrote: post #72

I have been doing the exact opposite of this strategy for some time now. Going to bed at 5am. Those 6 hours of coding between 11pm and 5am are some of the quietest you will ever experience in Toronto where I live at least. If I woke up at 5am, I would b HORN e cons HORN ta HORN ntly distrube HORNNNNNNNN d.

Is the noise there so bad that noise-cancelling headphones wouldn't help? You can get a pretty good pair from Bose for $200-300. It might be a steep investment at first, but if it improvements your working conditions and you use them for a few years...
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