Switching Up Sleep Schedules For Productivity
I used to be a full-on night owl. I preferred staying up until 4:00-5:00am to get things done rather than get up at 5:00 or 6:00am. Slowly, over the past couple of years, I've been ratcheting back the time that I aim to get up, mainly motivated by various work obligations and an interesting challenge in self-mastery.
Sweet flares, bro.
Lately, I've been trying to get up before 7:00am even when I don't have anything specific to do at that time and it's primarily because I automatically feel more productive when I'm getting up before sunrise. Coupled with making my bed upon waking, as I wrote about a little bit ago, I now get up and feel like getting stuff done immediately, rather than screwing around for a few hours and feeling awful because I was up until 4:00am and slept until noon. That's not to say that I don't still stay up late some nights and I certainly enjoy a good day of sleeping in until noon, but when I've made the effort to go to sleep around 10:00pm and get up by 7:00am, it puts me in a mood where I just want to keep being productive. There's also a lot less going on, so I have fewer distractions and am far more likely to get my run in first thing in the morning, or get a lift in, or get anything productive done. I've been trying to maximize my ability to be productive in the past couple months, and I have to say that, while maybe not wealthy and wise, I'm probably more healthy by following the old "early to bed, early to rise" moniker.