Comment by jen729w | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jen729w | Hacker News Reader

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You’re gonna hate me, but I have the answer: get up at 5am.

I know, I know, I sound like a douche already. I used to hate early mornings. Then I met my partner, and she’d get up early, and slowly it just happened. Now it’s me that sets the alarm.

Here’s the schedule: 5am wake up. Take a full hour to drink tea and read the news and eat some cereal or whatever. Go slow. Don’t go to the gym, that’s barbaric.

6am. Stretch a bit. 6:30am, sit down, start work. Ideally already have an idea of what you want to do – plan it the night before. DO NOT JUST OPEN YOUR EMAIL. By the time everyone else has settled in at 9:30am, you’ve already done all of the productive stuff.

It helps if you can block out your calendar until 11am, which I do, and it’s mostly respected. So I get from ~6am until 11am to myself. Magic.

On the topic of planning your day the day before, I can thoroughly recommend that as well. Check out the app Sorted3 (that’s a superscript for ‘cubed’) for iOS, that’s changed my life.

Oh, and of course if you’re up at 5am you need to be in bed early too. It’s 20:39 here in Canberra and I’m already tucked in. Night night. x

I used to hate early mornings. Then I met my partner, and she’d get up early, and slowly it just happened. She now sleeps in to 6:30.

This might work for you, but from my outside perspective that seems incredibly dystopian and depressing.

When do you see friends? When do you exercise? When do you go out to eat? Watch a film? Play video games?

Seems like that entire routine is about maximising your time working.

I'd rather be somewhat inefficient at work if it means I can have a balance which means I enjoy my life.

From one POV:

I wake at 430a and work-out first thing. I start working around 730a. I'm usually in bed around 9. If I'm in a creative mode, I can shorten the workout a bit and grab an extra hour in the mornings to write, etc.

I am usually done with job-work around 4p. My family and I, if we go out go out early. We joke we have an "early empty restaurant" habit. We usually watch a show or two each night (or Youtube playlists, movies). Our family things are running, hiking, working out, dog outings.

I see "friends" maybe once/month. That's all I need (should be said -- most people have a cancellation rate on "plans" -- so I'll make plans, but only have to show up periodically because people end up with conflicts; don't know how other people manage this, but it does make me reluctant to increase the "planning" requests from other people).

I do stuff with my son most days (gym, disc golf, pickle/raquetball, tennis), but he also goes to his mother's half-time. My partner goes out of her way to see her friends a few times/month (book club, girls group, happy hours).

Thing is, we don't drink. Not never-ever, but almost-never. One night out.. a few drinks.. upends our flow for a few days. I don't wake up wanting to get at things. Weekends we tend to do MORE of the list above (gym workout in the morning, disc golf in the afternoon, pickle ball in the evening, etc).

Video games? I've never played them. My son plays Minecraft/KSP 60-90 minutes/night, before bed.

And yes, I'm old enough to have a teenage son and I WFH.

Hey! Yeah this sounds familiar. We’re definitely in at the early restaurant sitting!

We do drink (weekends, a nice cocktail on the front porch), we don’t play video games (I used to when I was younger, but have no desire now), and we typically watch one episode of something with dinner. That’s all the TV I need. I have plenty of time that I could be watching more TV, we just choose not to.

Like, I have a ton of time to read and do my hobby projects. A ton.

I do those things after 4pm when I knock off work, which is at home in the small city that I live in (which happens to be the capital of Australia), so at 4pm I’m done. No commuting.

I also do them through the day, because I work flexibly and can do things like cycle to the shops for the groceries at 11am just because I want to.

See my sibling comment here about fitness, and also not working Monday.

If it seems depressing I failed in my description. I apologise. It’s actually incredibly relaxing. My partner and I often joke that it feels like we’re already retired. I’m 44 and I work 36-40 hours/week for a large IT integrator!

Edit: I just realised another thing. No kids. We don’t want them. My god I don’t know how you people fit kids in. So, that helps a lot.

Absolutely no.

Sleep deprivation is the worst thing you can do to increase productivity, long-term.

Actually, let me give this single, most important piece of advice: try to sleep 8 hours a day.

Dude I sleep at least 7.5 hours a night. I just go to bed early: see the last sentence in my post. (Edit: just checked AutoSleep. Average is 7h:58m. Edit edit: And that’s 90% weeknight sleep as I don’t usually wear the watch on the weekend. So my actual weekly average must be closer to 9h.)

Think about it this way: instead of getting up at 7am and going to bed at 11pm – a perfectly socially acceptable schedule – I shift it forward 2 hours.

It really isn’t that radical of an idea.

Also a Canberran! There once was a time in my life when I woke up at 5am every day for two weeks straight. It was magic.

You've prompted me to try again. Cheers mate!

If I may ask, at what time do you exercise?

Throughout the day, whenever it fits in.

Yesterday (I don’t work Mondays - getting up at 5am means I fit 36-40 hours in to Tue-Fri) we cycled to then walked up the hill after breakfast. That plus a couple of walks to town and back did me right.

Today it’ll probably be walks and perhaps a cycle to the shops which are a bit further away. I’m not a gym type, never have been. My physiology lets me get away with it.

Top tip for keeping fit: don’t own a car. :-)

Sounds like a neat routine. Thanks for sharing. It has definitely motivated me to be an early riser.

Thanks, but no.

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