I have long been a night person, taking pride in going to bed late and waking up even later. When I worked full-time on developing CustomBar I would head to bed between 3 and 5 in the morning and wake up around noon. I’m not sure why exactly I felt pushed towards this bizarre sleep cycle, but I definitely felt off-sync with the rest of the world. Any sort of morning commitment would become a major burden, and once I entered university this routine immediately became unstainable.

The excellent Getting Things Done by David Allen, which establishes an amazing system for ”stress-free productivity”, quotes Jean de La Bruysre - “Those who make the worst use of their time are the first to complain of its shortness”. Using your time effectively really is the key to avoiding the “not enough time” delimma, and it is definitely possible to spend many lifetimes pursuing optimal time use strategies. One thing I’ve always noticed is the fatigue I feel when returning home from school, work, shopping, or just about any activity. I have no explanation of it, other than the possibility of my brain shifting into a “relaxation state” upon being placed from an environment involving work and concentration to one associated with rest and comfort.

It is no suprise then that my best work occurs in the morning, prior to becoming engaged in the many other mentally demanding activities that face me each day. On top of this many other factors work in my favour: I am freshly rested, my mind has not had time to be filled up with “junk concerns” through the day, and I have not had a chance to procrastinate or dread beginning work.

Introducing The Extreme Morning Experiment

Last night I was particularly tired and ready to pass out. I also had a number of pressing activities, including PowerPoint materials that I needed to have submitted this morning for my upcoming presentation at the March Communitech breakfast and income tax documents to prepare for filing. On a whim I decided to try going to bed at 7pm and waking up at 3am. This would provide me a theoretical 9 hours of sleep and 6 hours of actual work time before my first appointment at 10:30am. I set my cell phone alarm clock and hit the sack an hour later than I first planned.

There must have been too much pressure to fall asleep. Despite tossing and turning and trying very hard to shut my body off, I didn’t succeed in actually falling asleep until at least 11:00pm. Definitely not a pleasant start.

3:00am - Wake-up Call

I woke up to a different ring than I normally use. Last night I was very pumped at the idea of waking up this early and really getting a head start on the day. I am convinced this positive attitude was a critical aspect of actually waking up at the designated time. I normally have to set two alarms 15 minutes apart and rousing me out of bed is a major process. This morning I lept out of bed and had the alarm off in record time. I was definitely still sleepy and disoriented, but this was offset by my eagerness to give this experiment a chance.

3:30am - Work Begins

Having showered and made a cup of tea it was time to begin work. The first hour was fairly productive but not especially pleasant. I felt a little disoriented and had to push myself to actually work. On the positive site I was thinking clearly mentally and I was not actually tempted to jump back into bed the same way I usually am when I have had too little sleep.

5:00am - Breakfast

I wound up having breakfast with 3 housemates, who despite not being morning people all coincidentally had to get up at this hour today as well. Very strange experience to say the least, as four people all crowded to make breakfast in the kitchen before the sun was up. This strange bit of luck and some interesting early morning conversation left me in a great mood as I sat back down to work.

9:30am - Reflections

With half an hour to go before I needed to leave I began to prepare material that I needed for a project. I had worked nearly non-stop since 6am, and adding the hour and a half before breakfast I had fit in 5 hours of productivity. I was surprised at the level of focus I was able to devote to my work. In these five hours I had touched-up a website development project, prepared my presentation slides, and completed some bookkeeping work. The strangest part however was the speed that time had passed. While pulling a full-day of work or lectures normally makes the clock grind to a halt, the hours were now just zooming past.

Since 10:30 I have since successfully participated in a microprocessors lab, worked on an image processing program, setup a postal box, written this post, and it’s only 4pm.

What Happens Now?

I have really enjoyed this day and did not find the morning particularly unpleasant. Strangely enough I did not experience the midday ”crash” that usually accompanies a lack of sleep and the rapid passing of work time was a terrific bonus. These results are of course preliminary, and are followed by some obvious and important questions:

• At what time today will my body decide it’s ready for bed?
• How will following this up with another extreme morning match up to today’s results?
• How much of today’s great productivity can be attributed to working first thing in the morning and how much to my desire for this day to succeed?
• What are the long-run effects? Is this sustainable and is it worth it?

I wrote this post in the process of my day partially due to all this energy and desire to work that I have, and partially to document the experiment while it is still fresh in my mind. I will post an update or two in the next 24 hours with results on how I’ve slept and feel.