The New 7-11 Sleeping Pattern

From January of 2006 up until last Friday, I stayed up until 3am – 4am, usually to get caught up with work. Then I would wake up at 10am-11am and run around trying to catch up with everything. The day never seemed long enough and I knew I couldn’t keep up that pattern for long. I had always wanted to be able to wake up early and sleep early, but I never did anything about it. Last week, I scheduled a meeting Saturday and Sunday at 6:30am. It was a bitch getting up, but I was very productive. I decided that I should keep the pattern of waking up early since I already did it two days in a row. The next day I woke up at 7:15am and have been doing so since. It is easier than I expected and the day leaves a lot of room to do the millions of things that I need to get done.

This was inspired by an article I read online that explained the sleeping habits of CEOs and executives at top companies. They wake up as early as 4:30am. The latest any of them woke up was 6am. If I was ever to get anywhere near the level of success or productivity of these professionals, I too would have to wake up early.

And just like that, I have become a morning person. Before, I wasn’t able to function at all if I woke up early. My brain felt numb until the evening, so my whole day was shot. Now I wake up and start work by 8am. By the time it’s 11pm, I’ve gotten 3 days worth of work done. I still need to work on my sleeping time, since sleeping at 1am isn’t the best idea when waking up early. My goal is 11pm-11:30pm. I also need to exercise daily. Studies have shown that exercise makes the body more efficient during sleep, and thus less hours of sleep are required.

I’ve also become a Starbucks whore. I used to make fun of the people who would go there and spend hours working on a laptop. Over the last week, I’ve been spending 10am to 10pm at the Burbank Starbucks. The sounds of people and the energy in the place (mixed with a shitload of caffeine) make it much more efficient than sitting in a quiet and lonely office for hours on end.

I have a feeling that when my 30-day free trial of T-Mobile Hotspot is finished, I will be working out of Coffee Bean instead (free Wi-Fi for all!)