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!)

And The Quest Continues...

For the past who-knows-how-long, I've been trying to make my life less stressful. I've finally admitted to myself that I am spreading myself too thin and trying to do too many things for too many people. Unfortunately, realization is not enough. Tying up the loose ends is oftentimes harder than the rest of the work.

Now, I am trying to wake up early (around 6:30am) and sleep early (around midnight) so that I can be more productive throughout my day. Unfortunately, burnout is a bitch. It sucks the life out of you. I know that if I was in solitary confinement for a week, I would have all the energy in the world. Life, as we all know, is not so flexible. First of all, I would have to commit a felony in a very sick and twisted way so that they would consider me insane. Who has time for all that? I guess my current strategy shall prevail.

The one thought that helps keep me going (except the thought of my beautiful and wonderful lady) is that, in theory, the more time I spend working, the more I should be able to finish. This has not held true yet. I have been turning down projects left and right (a rather counterintuitive way to conduct business) since January and still have a lot of work to catch up on. One project in particular is taking almost 200 hours more than I planned for. That's not so easy to schedule into an already tight calendar. But I shall continue on my honorable quest for a calm life.


Oh how I miss the comforting feeling of writing down my thoughts...