Waking Up Early Gave Me More Time

It's funny how you learn lessons then slowly move in another direction and have to come back to the lesson you learned. As a morning person, it's not news that I'm at my most productive before noon and for me in particular, I start getting diminishing returns after 2-3pm. I can be productive even till night but it's not me at my best. But over the past year or less, my wake up time became more and more late.

For someone who used to wake up at 5/6, before it's even bright, taking advantage of the peaceful silence while everyone else is asleep, it's interesting how I started waking up 7,8 and maybe start getting productive by 9. I got the better sleep hours but at the cost of being at my best. And it's not like the sleep was great to begin with because I was frequently tired. Granted, the tiredness could be blamed on multiple factors such as environment, changes in diet, and cognitive load, but it's not like the "more sleep" was doing anything.

I randomly decided to run an experiment. I don't exactly remember why but it was, say, two weeks ago. I set a 10pm bed time. Naturally that means 7-8 hours of sleep would get up up around 5/6 and it was like discovering a lost love. I suddenly somehow had more time, even though it doesn't mathematically make sense. It's not like I had less time before. I was going to bed at midnight ish. Maybe 1. I got my 7-8 hours. But somehow, not getting my gears moving until late morning was taking high value time from me.

And this isn't new. I knew this already but somehow, I shifted from what works for me slowly until it became obvious that I had drifted. Life do be like that. It's the small decisions or indecisions that drift into something that's bigger.

The routine fits perfectly. I wake up by like 5/6, do my usual 30 minute walk indoors, sometimes using that as an excuse to scroll french Tiktok, which adds to my French hours. I get into a real rhythm by maybe 7/8. And just like that, if I can lock in, i have 4 hours at my disposal to get French in. Then by noon/1pm I can focus on work and whatever being an adult wants from me till it's time to sleep. That's like 9-10 hours. Granted, it's not linear. On average I've found that you actually work half of the time you set to work when you factor in breaks, distractions, being an adult, etc. So if you have 10 hours blocked for work, unless you have a tight deadline, you may only work 5/6 max. You may be at your desk for the 10 hours but effective work done is like half of that. So I've learned to plan around that.

So, just by changing my bed time I gave myself more time and I plan to keep it that way for the forseeable future. After all, what am I doing at midnight that can't be done before 10?

Funny how you move from detesting bed times as a kid to growing up and wanting them back.