Getting Up Early: Week 4 - One Month Reflections

First of all, let me comment (make excuses) for this week's performance:

1. I went to a rockin' NBA game in the middle of the week which kept me up late that night so that threw off the next day by a lot.

2. I didn't have as many days to average out that day because I lost Monday to the President's Day holiday.

So this week should be an anamoly, an outlier, if you will.

That said, let me note that before I even started this experiment, I used to average getting to my desk at around 9:30am. If that. I don't have an exact number because what crazy bastard keeps track of when he gets to work every day? But that's a well educated guess. So all in all, I've made some modest progress.

Also keep in mind that over the past month there have been many days when I've gotten to work right around 8:00am. But, like I said last week, an equal number of days getting into work past 9am serve to quickly push the average up. Finally, I should mention that on average I workout before getting to work 2 weekdays per week. It's hard for me to get to work by 8am on those days because I have to wake up ridiculously early, but I'm getting there.

So those are my excuses.

Here are my reflections for this month of my getting up early experiment.

1. It isn't easy. Getting your weekly average down significantly that is.

2. I definitely sleep a solid 8 hour average per night, which means to wake up earlier I have to go to bed earlier.

3. In light of reflection #2, my eventual, kind-of-secret goal of waking up at 7am is not realistic.

4. Getting an early start on work when few people are there is awesome.

Overall, this experience has validated my reason for doing this experiment: Work in the morning is more effective and feels like less suffering than work in the afternoon/evening. The second reason is the key reason I started the experiment. I realized that working for hours before lunch felt like no big deal; working in the morning doesn't feel hard for me. Whereas, working into the evening gives me a psychological feeling of suffering.

I will average getting to work by 8am. Oh I'm determined. Oh you just watch.

Getting Up Early: My Experiment
Getting Up Early: Week 1
Getting Up Early: Week 2 - A Pathetic Performance
Getting Up Early: Week 3 - I am a Tortoise

Getting Up Early: Week 3 - I am a Tortoise

The tortoise won the race my friends, the tortoise won the race. I can take comfort in the fact that on any given week I am not drastically changing my schedule, which according to gurus and experts everywhere means my habit change is more likely to last...right?

I did cross the 8:30am mark, which is exciting.

What makes it hard to bring the weekly average down quickly is merely a day or two of slipping up. Here's what I mean: Say on Monday and Tuesday you get in at around 8:00am. Great, you're on schedule. Then, Tuesday night you have to stay at school wrapping up some experiment a bit later than you intended which pushes back your sleep time a tad (say 1 hour) and consequently you arrive to school on Wednesday at 8:30am. That's not so bad, you only need to show up on Thursday at 7:30am to keep your 8:00am average. You try to do that, can't quite pull it off, but put in a respectable 7:50am attempt. Your average getting into work time for Monday to Thursday is sitting at 8:05 am, right on the money. But, on Thursday your friends invite you over to dinner, tomorrow's a Friday, you have some wine, you're chatting, and before you know it you're only getting to bed at 1:00am. You get up at 8:30am the next day and aren't at school until 9:30am. Due to this one night, your average, which was sitting right around 8:00am all week long is now 8:22, right below the 8:30am mark.

That's why it ain't easy.

Nonetheless, improvement was made in a week where I went to bed at a later time, which means my morning routine is more efficient, that's good. Here are the full numbers:

To Bed: 10:40 pm
Out of Bed: 6:35 am
Hours of Sleep: 7.92 hrs.
At work: 8:26 am
Tired: 4.2 /10 (10 = very tired, 1 = very not)

Getting Up Early: Week 2 - A Pathetic Performance

Is it possible that I managed to go to sleep almost a half hour earlier (10:19 pm average) and only get to work 4 minutes earlier on average? Who goes to sleep at 10 o'clock, sleeps 8 hours to the minute, and doesn't get to work until 8:30am? That's absurd.

I do workout in the morning (twice again this week) but regardless, I should make up for any late showings to my desk on the three non-workout days. Eight hours past 10 pm is 6 am, which begs the question, why is it taking me 2 hours to get to my desk when I live 25 minutes by foot and bus from my lab?

My goal is still to get to work, on average, at 8am every day. Not that hard, I know. In fact, my secret goal is to get to work by 7am eventually, but baby steps first. The chart shows my averages for going to sleep and getting to my desk for this week and Week 1. A list of all averages is below. Next week I'll push that red line down far, I garauntee it!

To Bed: 10:19 pm
Out of Bed: 6:23 am
Hours of Sleep: 7.99 hrs.
At work: 8:33 am
Tired: 3.8/10 (10 = very tired, 1 = very not)

Getting Up Early: My Experiment
Getting Up Early: Week 1

Getting Up Early: Week 1

Photo by: scui3asteveo

So here are the results of my early rising experiments for Week 1. I want to emphasize that it's my first week, so I'm still learning! My goal is to get into work by 8:00am, including days when I go to the gym in the morning (supposed to be 2 out of the 5 workdays). To review my categories are:

1) To bed and to rise times and total hours slept.
2) Time at work.
3) 0-10 scale of how tired I was with 0 being as energetic as ever and 10 being asleep most of the day.
4) General thoughts and satisfaction with the day.

At the bottom I've listed average values for categories 1 - 3.

Here is a link to my introduction post for this experiment.

Monday

1) Asleep: 11:00 pm
Out of Bed: 6:30 am
Hours of Sleep: 7.5 hrs
2) At work: 8:25 am
3) Tired: 2/10
4) Progress not bad, 8:25 am is a lot better than 9:25 am.

Tuesday

1) Asleep: 10:30 pm
Out of Bed: 6:00 am
Hours of Sleep: 7:30 hrs
2) At work: 8:40 am (gym)
3) Tired: 8/10
4) So tired. Last hour of sleep was off an on. Got to the gym late, so then into work late.

Wednesday

1) Asleep: 10:30 pm
Out of Bed: 6:50 am
Hours of Sleep: 8:20 hrs
2) At work: 8:15 am
3) Tired: 1/10
4) Excellent, made up for yesterday.

Thursday

1) Asleep: 11:00 pm
Out of Bed: 7:00 am
Hours of Sleep: 8:00 hrs
2) At work: 8:45 am
3) Tired: 2/10
4) What a waste, I should be able to get into work an hour after waking up, but I didn't get in until almost 9am.

Friday

1) Asleep: 11:00 pm
Out of Bed: 7:15 am
Hours of sleep: 8:15 hrs.
2) At work: 9:00am
3) 4/10
4) Didn't sleep well. Stayed in bed too long. Didn't get into the gym. I'm unraveling at the end of the week!

Averages

1) Asleep: 10:48 pm

2) Out of Bed: 6:43 am

3) Hours of Sleep: 7.9

4) At Work 8:37 am

5) Tired: 3.4/10

Goals

I said I wanted to go to bed between 10 and 10:30 pm every day to get into work by 8:00 am. Clearly comparing the averages of asleep time to at work time shows if I go to bed on average at 10:15 pm, I should be able to get to work at about 8:00 am. I seem to average a solid 8 hours of sleep, as expected, and overall my tiredness is below 5, which means I have energy and focus, so that's good.

The fact that even after declaring I'm doing this experiment and keeping a log, I couldn't get in before 8:30 am on average is pretty pathetic, especially when considering I missed one gym day (which I have to make up for this weekend). 8:30 am is by no means early.

This needs to change drastically next week. The main goal for next week is to get into work by 8:00am on average. I understand that this is going to require getting into work before 8:00am on some days, but that can't be impossible.

Anyone have any early rising tips and tricks? Share your thoughts!

Getting Up Early: My experiment

Photo by: prakhar

I'm going to start a series of weekly posts that track my experiences with trying to wake up earlier on weekdays. A combination of realizing that I am more alert and energetic in the morning and this post on zenhabits made me want to try. I've been doing this for a couple of weeks now (halfway successfully) but I decided this week that I should start tracking how each day went. I figure tracking my experience may help me be more diligent with going to bed early enough to make it work and could be informative to anyone thinking of trying to wake up earlier too.

Here is some background on my sleeping habits so you know where I’m starting from:

• I haven’t considered myself a morning person until maybe a few months back, when I realized really that I wasn’t a night person and figured maybe I’m getting older.
• I need about 7.5 to 8.5 hours of sleep a night to not feel sleepy throughout the day, although I always get up at least once during the night. These days I usually get up after about 6 or 7 hours to go to the bathroom. This makes the last hour or so questionable in terms of sleep quality.
• I’m 24.
• I’m male.
• I workout regularly and eat well.

Before this experiment (or habit change I hope) I would normally go to bed between 11 and 12 and get out of bed (distinct from waking up) at 8 or later. I would then get into work no earlier than 9am. Usually not before 9:30am. Every once in a while I would wake up between 7am and 8am. I found that when I got into to work well after 9, I would often sit down, check my email, and not actually start on that day’s important tasks until 10am. Now I’m trying to wake up by 6am on non-workout days (M, W, F) and 5:30am on workout days (T, Th). I’m hoping on both workout and non-workout days to get into work by 8am and start on my important tasks immediately. The weekends are free, but I try not to sleep in past 9am.

Here is what I’m hoping to gain from waking up early:

1. I can workout in the morning when the gym is not a zoo.

2. I’m hoping to be more efficient by shifting my work hours towards the morning, when I’m more fresh and there are fewer friends and colleagues there to talk to. I’ve found that working straight from whenever I get to work until lunchtime (sometime between 11am-12pm) is no problem regardless of how early I get in, whereas, after lunch I get distracted more easily, I’m tired, and doing work just seems more painful. This means I usually end up sitting at my desk feeling like I’m at work, but just doing unimportant tasks or browsing the internet. This is a supreme drag because you get home thinking you’ve worked hard, psychologically feeling like you’ve worked hard, but at the end of the day have little to show for it. That’s like taking the stress work gives and not getting the rewards. This realization is the straw that broke my back into starting this experiment. I also find that when I get in early (8ish) and no one is there, it somehow makes me want to quickly start working and get my A1s or MITs done (whatever you want to call it), who knows why, but I’ll take it.

I will answer the following questions towards the end of each day: 1) What time I went to sleep and got up. 2) What time I got into work and/or gym. 3) How tired I was throughout the day. 4) Did I feel it was worthwhile?

I'll try to write the answers up at the end of each day but I'll post the whole week’s responses on Friday. Wish me luck!