As far back as I can remember, I’ve always been partial to a later schedule. I often stay up late working and sleep in until 8 or 9 depending on how late I was up the previous night. I probably only set my alarm clock once or twice a month. Luckily my work offers me that flexibility. However it can become a problem when I need to get up early for something.
For example, on Friday morning I had to get up early to catch a flight to Phoenix with a round of golf scheduled for Friday afternoon. Because I’m not used to going to bed early or getting up early, my body basically rebelled all day and I was cranky and impatient by the afternoon. Not a good combination on the golf course (especially when you haven’t golfed in a few months). 😉
Also, I feel obligated to get through the e-mails that have come in overnight before I do anything else in the morning. Sometimes this can run for several hours, especially if one of them tells me about a fire that needs fighting. Then I begin to run into scheduled meetings and phone calls and I’ve never really had a chance to eat breakfast, etc. to really start my day.
The point I’m getting at is that I’m wondering how it would be if I shifted my entire schedule a few hours. Maybe if I get up at 6am I would be more willing to let the e-mails sit until my work day
starts at 9am. Maybe I’d find a half hour to make a decent breakfast (I cook a mean egg scramble) or go hit a few golf balls before diving in to work. As it is now, I rarely find time to walk over to the putting green for practice because if I wait until the afternoon I never feel I have time. There is always more work to be done when you’re working for yourself.
Has anyone out there tried this? I’m curious to hear your results.
I had a lot of success following the techniques in Steve Pavlina’s How to Become an Early Riser. It’s 1:30a right now, so obviously I’m not on that schedule at the moment. 🙂
Having kids was also a good way to clear this problem up!
Having kids is just a tad too drastic for a solution – esp. if you’re looking for a quick fix 😉
My own hours are strange – prior to self-employment, I was a 3rd shift RN, so very, very used to being up all night…and its when i am most productive. But when I started working for myself – most projects demanded regular ‘business hours’ – so I compromised and work a 10am – 8pm day
Although, every so often I get on a kick of rising early – around 6:30 – 7am — and yet, somehow still find myself making a cup of coffee and tackling emails right away…hoping to get work out of the way early in the day, so I can find time for other things in the afternoons. Yet, those days – – 9 times outta 10 I still find myself working until 7-8pm.
Self employment creates a tremendous need for self discipline when it comes to ‘me time’ – mostly because, since you work at home – you never really leave the office.
‘Me time’ was much easier when I worked in the hospital — when my shift was done, it was done and I didn’t have to worry about work again until the next day.
Obviously, I work for corporate America, but I’ve been getting up early the past few weeks and enjoying not rushing right into my day. I mean, I’ve had a leisurely breakfast, watched some of last night’s TV, and still really don’t have to be in the office for another hour. [Although I’ll go in soon after posting this comment.] I’m essentially time-shifting some of my evening free time to the morning and balancing out the day a bit.
But honestly, you could do that whenever, and you know your body’s rhythms better than anyone else. If your mind is sharpest during afternoon and early evening hours, peaking around sunset, you probably want to wrap your workday around that and let the sleep pattern fall where it may.
I tend to be an early riser (7am), and it really works well. I find that a “slow” start (breakfast, read the paper, hot shower) really helps out, by the time all that is done it is usually 8:45ish.
Plush it allows me to take a break during the day, and play some Wii.
I’d often stay up until 4am and “sleep in” until 8 or 9. Then I’d work all day with a few half-hour breaks, and go back to bed.
Then I got married and had a kid. Now my day is as follows: wake up at 7:30 or so when the kid wakes me up. Hang out with her until 9 when I take her to school. Then I “get” to work until 4 or 5, at which time I try my best to stop all work activity and spend time with the family. Any email/IM checks done after 5pm are of a personal nature, or the “I can reply in five seconds” nature. If it will take longer, I just save an empty reply to my drafts box so I’ll get to it the next day.
The difference in the two schedules – work all day versus being able to stop at 5 – is part of the reason I sold my indie software company a few years ago when I got married.
I’ve been in your exact position. Working for myself, I tended to stay up til 1-2AM working, then up by 8-9.
It wasn’t just having the kids that helped me out….
It was having to take our daughter to school by 7:45AM that really kicked me in the pants.
After working 2 years for an oil company, on a 4am -2pm shift, 4 days on and 4 days off schedule my body became very good at being able to time shift. This is also a curse.
I do find that being at the office usually on my own from 8AM to 10AM, I can get a LOT of work done whether that’s actual coding or it’s dealing with emails, etc.
As a student, I don’t always get the most settled nights – even if I try to have an early night, I often get woken up by other people being noisy!
In my experience, my aptitude for the work at hand varies: I am an arts student, and I find that I work best on essays during the morning if I am fresh. I can’t work on that kind of thing at night – I just find myself being distracted. When it comes to computing/coding, I find I work best in the evening – sometimes late into the night. I generally try to work to these patterns – noise caused by others, and early-morning meetings/classes notwithstanding.
I tried to go to bed early last night and get up early this morning. Lay awake for a few hours and was too tired to get up when the alarm went off. Not a successful start.
Alex,
Make the change over a month… if you usually get up at 9, start getting up at 8 for a week… next week 7… next 6. I find it almost impossible to shift my time several hours at a shot. Oh, and don’t cheat too much on weekends, esp at the start… getting up at 6am, but reverting to a 10am time on Sat and Sun makes it VERY hard to switch back on Monday.
I think another key will be to force yourself to take some time in the AM vs just moving your morning routine up several hours… unless you then take amid-morning break. But that will likely not happen for the same reason that you don’t take afternoon breaks.
Oh and another guy I read is doing this – David Seah at davidseah.com… might want to check that and his comments out for other tips.
Designer David Seah is trying to get a (very) early start on his workdays, and is describing the ups and downs in detail on his weblog: http://davidseah.com[...]y/#more-1215
Alex: Most sleep researchers argue that you can’t change a regular sleep time more than 15-30 minutes a night. For me, if I’m needing to reset my sleep clock, I take 3mg of melatonin [available at any drugstore in the vitamin aisle] and that typically does the trick.
This is something that I’ve been interested in lately as well. I’m a night owl by nature, but find that early mornings are some of my most productive. I made an attempt at this a month ago with poor results. I’m ready to give it another shot. I’ve heard that it helps to practice getting up to the alarm. By this I mean setting the alarm and laying in bed during the day. When the alarm goes off, you get up. Just today I decided that I’m trying this on Saturday. I’ll post again next week with my results. Let us know how you fare with shifting your schedule.
I tried to go to bed last night at ~11:35 which isn’t that unusual for me. I think I went to bed a little after 12 the night before but over the weekend I was in bed by 11:45 at the latest each night. I wasn’t trying a drastic switch, I know that won’t work well.
After quitting my day job in the Summer my scheduling went all to hell as my 18-20 hours awake/5-6 hours asleep pattern pushed my waking hours further and further out of sync with the world. Last month I read Steve Pavlina’s article, and hunted a few other blogs for tips and then took the plunge into getting up early too.
I wrote a blog entry about it, though I have started to fall off the wagon recently, and I like David Seah’s idea of logging his results so might post some followups myself.
I have a day job and work freelance at night, so my schedule is screwy. I used to be self-employed and enjoyed working until 2am, then sleeping till 9 or 10.
Now, I get up at 5:30 every day to have an hour or so to myself before the kids wake up. Then I usually work 2-3 hours at night after the kids go to bed. I try to get in bed before midnight.
It’s crazy right now, but I can’t quit my day job and I don’t want to give up my dream of my own business…