This is great. And I just want to add, that being/becoming a morning person is HIGHLY underrated. I'm very much a “natural" night owl, but when I wake up at noon (especially on a weekday) I feel like I've wasted half the day. After my 26 years on this planet, I have come to the following conclusion: when you wake up early, you own the day; when you wake up late, the day owns you. Right or wrong, when I wake up late I struggle to be productive and feel like I’ve wasted so much time. I feel like I can’t relax or take my time because I’ve slept so late.** When I wake up early, I’m waking up with the world, and with nature. I don’t wake up to hustle and bustle and the sun in the sky. I’m groggy with nature, the sun is rising as I prepare myself for the day, people are running to work at about the same time. It’s just so helpful to my psyche and my productivity to get a lock on that feeling that I can only get when I wake up early.
However true it may be, it’s a shame that being a night owl is associated with being “young” and being an early riser makes you “old.” I’ve had those 2 am bursts of energy, and done some very productive work late into the night. But I feel like we romanticize this a little too much. There’s nothing wrong with it, but it’s no more right than waking up early. It doesn’t make you unique or special or hold the secret to anything.
And re: going to be earlier, if you struggle with this, it helps tremendously to audit why you are reluctant to go to bed earlier. I am personally addicted to my phone (it helps to get an alarm clock separate from your phone so you can put your phone in a drawer or another room at night). I also get really into TV and made a bad habit of watching 3-4 episodes of whatever show I’m on before I go to sleep (which probably wouldn’t be too bad if I started watching it earlier, but then I’d be pretty much ignoring my wife, which is no bueno).
** Part of this probably has to do with the fact that I’m freelancing and my wife is currently working full time. She wakes up early, and comes home around 6. So that means if I’m not approximately on my wife’s schedule (give or take an hour), it makes the day seem very short and weird. Because if I wake up at noon or 1 (as I do if I’m not careful with my sleep schedule), that means I only have 5-6 hours to: bathe, eat, do my pre-work rituals, and work.
It would be the equivalent of my main workday ending at noon if I woke up at 7 am. Because my wife gets home, and then I want to talk to her, make/eat dinner, and unwind with her. And then she’s tired, so she goes to sleep around 9. So my day becomes awkwardly bisected. What is dinner time for someone on a normal sleep schedule becomes my “lunch” time. So while my wife gets ready for bed/goes to sleep, I’m working from around 9-11 or 12. And then I want to catch up on my shows and unwind a bit.
But if I can get on my wife’s schedule, give or take an hour, that means I can get up around 7:30-8 and not feel rushed at all while I: bathe, make coffee, cook some breakfast, take a nice walk, read a solid periodical like The Economist to wake up my mind, and begin working at my own leisurely pace starting at around 9-9:30. If I’m efficient I can get about 3/4 of my work squared away by the time I naturally wake up (12-1) otherwise. After lunch when I feel that early afternoon energy slump, I can do less intellectually demanding things, like organize, catch up on administrative things, errands. Dive back into some work around 3:30 when I’m out of the energy slump. Be about done by the time my wife gets home, enjoy dinner with her, and then read a good book or watch one episode (ONE) of a show I like, and go to sleep at a normal hour. I like it so much more.