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The Secret to Becoming an Annoyingly Productive Early Morning Person

187 points by joeyespo 8y ago

mykowebhn 8y ago
I think the key point here that was left unmentioned is that the writer seems to be working from home. If I had to get ready to leave the home and commute every day, I think a lot of my morning time would be spent just getting ready and commuting. This is one of the chief reasons I prefer to work from home: the productivity gains one gets from having free time in the morning to work. EDIT: I just noticed that the author does commute. Still, I'm not sure I'd be productive if I had to commute an hour each way every day.
- Novashi 8y ago
  Plus they're likely doing something they enjoy.
- allannienhuis 8y ago
  He explicitly says in the article that he arrives at his office by 6am. That said, I suspect he doesn't have a 1.5 hr commute like many do (and I used to have, at times). Working from home does indeed provide a tremendous advantage, particularly with those quiet early morning hours.
  - wolco 8y ago
    Getting to work by 6am usually means he drove without many cars on the road.
    - erinnh 8y ago
      This is specifically the reason why I changed from a person that got in barely at 10am to somebody that comes in at 6am. Way less traffic and that cuts my commute down by half. (1hour to 30 min) And I found I actually like 2-3 hours of no distractions at the beginning of the day. When I came in at 10am, it was 0-100 almost immediately because somebody always wanted something. Took me a good month though to actually learn to go to sleep before 11pm. Originally whenever I slept before 11pm, even if I was dead tired, I would wake up at 2-3 am and not be able to sleep again.
      - slededit 8y ago
        If you had pushed it just a little bit farther to 11am you would have been commuting in the daytime lull and had the same benefits.
        cimmanom 8y ago
        Probably depends on where you live/work. My experience is that the roads go from empty to busy around 6:30 and start to get seriously clogged around 7:15. They're worst 8:15 - 9:30, but 11-2:30 is pretty similar to 7:45, partly because of double-parked trucks everywhere.
        erinnh 8y ago
        Not possible with my employer. 10am is the latest I am allowed to arrive. And to be honest, I already hated being in office at 8pm some times, so being out from work at 3/4pm is also a plus in my book.
    - mykowebhn 8y ago
      Sounds like the key to a productive, quiet morning is to work from home, or get up at 4:30am in order to avoid traffic and get to work by 6am. I think I prefer the former.
cududa 8y ago
This missed the fact that there’s a massive body of evidence showing people have different genetic predispositions to being morning people versus night owls
- colordrops 8y ago
  I don't think that's what this article is about. Everyone has predispositions. There are some techniques that work for many people. This person is just sharing theirs in case it helps someone else.
- Bahamut 8y ago
  Even so, this can be changed via environment. I had a big predisposition to being a night owl in the past, often sleeping between 1 - 3 am, but after I enlisted in the military, being an early bird has stuck with me ever since. I often wake up 5-6 am and go to sleep ~10-11 pm, sometimes closer to 9, sometimes later. For me, not using alarms to wake up in general, and sleeping earlier works wonders. I also adjusted to having less sleep as a result of the forced sleeplessness of military life.
- mykowebhn 8y ago
  Extremely small sample size (of two), but I used to be a night owl, and in my old(er) age I've definitely become a morning person. Same with my wife. It's not unusual for us to be in bed by 8pm. My point is that being a morning/night person might be changeable.
  - rsuelzer 8y ago
    It is a fact that as we age we prefer to go to bed earlier. There is a good evolutionary explanation for this. It makes sense that teenagers with better eye sight would stay up late to watch over the tribe / livestock at night, this predisposition for younger people to be night owls benefited the survival of the species.
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blaze_run 8y ago
I don't understand why productive, morning people are perceived as annoying.
- pavel_lishin 8y ago
  As a night owl, it's because often time by the time I get to work and am still ramping up my day, they're going at full speed and expect me to do the same.
- johnchristopher 8y ago
  They usually take everything at face value. /s
kough 8y ago
The way I've switched from a 'wake-at-2-pm' kind of person to a 'wake-at-6-am' kind of person is setting an alarm, popping 200mg caffeine + 200mg modafinil, then going back to bed. In 10 minutes I'll be right back up and ready to go to the gym and go about my day. I've started dialing back the modafinil since it seems unnecessary to get up anymore and I have some ethical concerns (see comment below.) I'll also +1 the friction removal concept -- laying out my gym clothes the night before really helps me get out the door as soon as I'm up in the morning. Otherwise, I'll tend to want to go back to bed.
- felipemnoa 8y ago
  >>200mg caffeine I used to be a big caffeine drinker. In my experience the problem with caffeine is that your body's tolerance to it seems to increase and so you need to keep increasing the dosage in order to get the same effect. It ended up being a net negative for me. I've noticed that the best way to wake up early is simply to go to sleep early. Takes a bit of work at the beginning if you've developed some bad habits but eventually you can get used to it. Seems to be more mental than physical. Also, caffeine should really be used only for emergencies in my opinion. Like if you've had very little sleep but you still need to be productive. Other than that I would stay away from it. Your body really does not need daily doses of caffeine to function, just like it does not need nicotine nor alcohol nor any other drug (assuming no medical need). They are just net negatives. Drink green tea if you really feel like having some mild stimulant every day.
  - mnbvkhgvmj 8y ago
    Isn't green tea quite high in caffeine?
    - toomuchtodo 8y ago
      It is, but it also has L-Theanine, which moderates some of the effects of the caffeine you're consuming in green tea. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18681988 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18681988 (The combined effects of L-theanine and caffeine on cognitive performance and mood)
reneberlin 8y ago
Instead of focussing of being externally useful / abused - please consider: internal, subjective rules to obey. You are more than an experiment on short-living, abandoned batteries for the society you feel to be living a standard for.
- Klathmon 8y ago
  And your feelings toward a purpose in life aren't objectively right either. If I want to spend my short time on this planet in a more productive way so I can do more in my life, that's my choice and I'm not making a mistake or doing it wrong. Do what you feel you need to do, but don't pretend like I'm living life wrong just because I'm different.
- gatherhunterer 8y ago
  Just because you are doing work does not mean that you are a cog. Many people do work that is meaningful for them. There is no shame in being productive.
Mizza 8y ago
Fuck this. I'm a night time person and I feel like I'm constantly punished by a society that places a moral value on waking up early. In all seriousness, I'm thinking about starting a "night company" for night time people. Come in at 2, work until 10. Is there anybody out there who'd be interested in something like that?
- deleted 8y ago
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- ams6110 8y ago
  Yes, but they're all single or otherwise have no family obligations. Once you have a family and have to deal with school and other activities it's pretty hard to deviate much from the normal 9-5 workday.
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  - AndrewKemendo 8y ago
    No that's bogus. I have three kids and am very much a night person. Usually in bed around 2.
    - ramphastidae 8y ago
      Are you responsible for getting your kids to school? The average US school day starts at 8 AM.
      - TomMarius 8y ago
        In my country kids use their foot to get to the school, even small kids (usually starting at 9 years when afterschool care is not available anymore). Maybe you should start structuring your society in a way that allows people without cars to get around if you don't like that, or move to Europe.
yabatopia 8y ago
The advice in the article is very universal and not specific to early morning people. A night owl too can prepare his breakfast or lunch, make a plan or meditate before sleep and benefit from that. It takes just a few changes and the title becomes The Secret To Becoming an Annoyingly Productive Night Owl. So what, you wake up early?
inertiatic 8y ago
I don't think it's too much to claim that if you can develop a routine that makes you perform great mentally that early in the morning, you probably aren't a "night person".
- kekebo 8y ago
  depends if nature is generally stronger than intent
- MRD85 8y ago
  I'll disagree here as I'm naturally a night person but my current schedule is all early mornings due to my combination of work, study and parenting. It's not fun but I maintain it with discipline and it works out really well for productivity. If I don't need to be productive and relax a bit I'll slip into night owl mode.
- rsanek 8y ago
  This hasn't been my experience. My natural sleep cycle is something like 2am-10am, but for a span of 6 months I was able to develop a habit of 9:30pm-5:30am. In the morning I'd immediately go to the gym and then upon return (~7am) start doing work. It was one of the most productive periods of my life. Unfortunately, despite seeing the benefits of the early-morning schedule, over time I reverted back to my night-owl tendencies.
brightball 8y ago
I currently work with a largely European dev team and started getting up and 5am to have more work day overlap. The hardest thing for me was getting to sleep at 9pm because I’ve always struggled to get to sleep. Usually I have too much on my mind. Turns out that necessity actually forced me to figure it out. I discovered that I can get to sleep if I turn on a movie that I’ve seen many times before because it basically keeps my mind from wandering. Not kidding at all, for the last 4 months I’ve turned on Avengers Infinity War every night + the sleep timer on the TV. I’m usually out cold before “Launch 17-A” and I never make it past the Guardians scene that comes right after. Also have to sleep on my side. I’m sure it sounds crazy but it’s the only thing I’ve found that consistently works.
- reubenswartz 8y ago
  That would put me to sleep. :)
- bobwaycott 8y ago
  I do roughly the same thing anytime I want to make myself sleep, but with Futurama. :)
- SllX 8y ago
  Used to do this until I stopped needing to. A consistent bed time plus Rick and Morty/Venture Bros./Archer, just going from season 1 episode 1 on down the list, and then restarting once I got to the last episode at some point. Worked very well, but I think if I tried it now, I would have a more difficult time sleeping with television playing in the background now that I no longer sleep this way.
- noir_lord 8y ago
  Hah I do the same thing with audio books of books I’ve read many times, engaging enough to silence my thoughts but I don’t care if I fall asleep. In my case terry pratchett audio books since some of those I can almost quote entire chapters.
  - 2sk21 8y ago
soufron 8y ago
One alternative solution is to schedule all of your emails so they are sent at 7 or 8am. That way you'll be annoyingly productive early in the morning, while sleeping. Best of two worlds.
- listenallyall 8y ago
  The "Send Later" extension for Thunderbird is terrific for this exact use case. https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/addon/send-later-3/ https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/addon/send-...
manuelgoldstein 8y ago
One reason why US stagnated and productivity (real, as indicated by inflation adjusted incomes, not the official stats) fell is because until the Civil Rights Era even middle class had house help, and women largely did not work. They could do all the things described in the article for their working husbands. It's not a secret that women's employment is largely counterproductive by itself, but the effect compounds with the absence of homemaking.
- astazangasta 8y ago
  I hate to break it to you, hoss, but income and productivity are not the same thing. Productivity has continued to grow at a reasonable pace since the "Civil Rights Era". Meanwhile, incomes stagnated. I.e., what you said is exactly inverted. http://i2.cdn.turner.com/money/dam/assets/150709122537-productivity-vs-income-growth-780x439.jpg http://i2.cdn.turner.com/money/dam/assets/150709122537-produ...
- pie_hacker 8y ago
  >> It's not a secret that women's employment is largely counterproductive by itself This kind of sexism can be quite harmful. You might want to rethink this one. >> They could do all the things described in the article for their working husbands. True, but there's no obvious reason why it shouldn't be men who do these things for their working wives. Why should one half of a marriage devote their time and effort to the other half's success rather than having their own success as well?
  - manuelgoldstein 8y ago
    Their success is measured in different terms: in having children (more children than parents for sustained population). In this most important regard, they have failed.
    - dang 8y ago
      If you continue to troll HN we will ban your main account as well.
astazangasta 8y ago
No mention of children in this article, or anywhere in this thread. I guess parents are just doomed to be annoyingly unproductive, no matter how early we get up.
- MRD85 8y ago
  I'm a single parent of two young kids. I go to bed with them (i.e. 7:30-8pm) and I wake at 4am. They tend to wake about 6am, this gives me a solid 1.5 hours of productive time and about half an hour of muck around time.
  - ttul 8y ago
    Single parent of three kids reporting in here. We make Timothy Ferris types look like total losers by 6am.
- SllX 8y ago
  I think it was only two or three days ago I was on HN reading a comment from a single working (Army) parent who takes a few credits every semester. It didn’t sound pleasant, and he specifically stated this was a temporary state of affairs because he is setting himself up for after he leaves the Army so he can best be there for his kid when it matters, but it was at the very least, a productive routine and lifestyle that matched his circumstances and life choices. Routine, Discipline and a regular amount of sleep, regular in this case meaning routine amount, not necessarily a lot or a little. That is my takeaway from every single not-worthless article or piece of commentary that has helped me get my own shit together. The actual details generally don’t matter, the actual lifestyle doesn’t matter, and the actual job or field of study doesn’t matter. So long as you have those three elements, you, the general you and not necessarily you specifically, can figure out the rest. The amount of caffeine consumption or lack thereof, whether you shower in the morning or at night or both, how you commute, whether you work from home or not, what you eat in the morning, et cetera. I guess in the case of two or more working adults in the same house, cooperation/division of labor is another key element in that mixture, but I am not speaking from experience, just observation, on that one. Not to discredit the difficulties of parenting, it is the hardest job in the world to do well, but somehow we’ve collectively increased our population to 7 billion of us and a not insignificant fraction of us generally turn out alright, and the how you go about it matters a little bit less than the why. The parents that are enthusiastic about and enjoy being parents will always be better than the ones that had it foisted upon them somehow, and in that sense, it is just like another job: you learn how to do it, you learn how to do it well, you make it an integral part of your day, and that means building it into your routine so that you always have time to be a parent, that way your kids don’t turn out like those of us where our parents weren’t present and we were background details, distractions, when they were.
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camdenlock 8y ago
He glosses over his consumption of coffee way too easily. "No drugs involved! ... except for a strong shot of caffeine, a powerful stimulant, just after waking up, and again 6 hours later." No thanks. I'll listen to my body and its rhythms, producing work when opportunities arise. Restricting one's schedule artificially like this seems like a recipe for burnout and misery.
- brianberns 8y ago
  Amen. I stopped reading when I saw the casual caffeine addiction. Red flag. No thanks.
GoToRO 8y ago
The secret to wake up early is to sleep early. And yes, it makes a big difference to my productivity.
rland 8y ago
My 2 rules for being up and alert at 6am: 1. Get in bed by 10pm every night, no exceptions. 2. If I can't sleep after I'm in bed, it means I haven't exercised enough. So, exercise, then GOTO 1. Downside to this is that it works--after a few days of the cycle, if I try to stay up past 10, I nosedive to half-dead around 10:30.
ttul 8y ago
Does the author have kids? I’m up at 5:30am getting my kids ready for school. If I’m lucky, that process is fully complete by 8:25am when the final kids are on the school bus. If I had the luxury of a zen wake up experience, I don’t know what I would do with myself.
- HereBeBeasties 8y ago
  Anyone who can find the time to write such a massively long article with so little actual content in it clearly doesn't have children.
  - skiman10 8y ago
    He has a daughter.
    - detaro 8y ago
      Two daughters.
- Etheryte 8y ago
  Having kids is a choice like any other — there are upsides as well as downsides, both of which you don't fully know in advance. I do think it's quite safe to say that quality sleep is not something to expect when you decide to have kids.
eriktrautman 8y ago
2 quick things to add. First, eat dinner much earlier if you're remotely sensitive to blood sugar movements (read: a normal human) because the difference between eating at 6 and at 8 is huge when trying to get to sleep. Second, have something you really want to wake up to do. For me, it's almost always breakfast. I can't wait to get out of bed to have the delicious thing I have every day which my body really wants.
skookumchuck 8y ago
I'm an annoyingly productive night person. Why should I change?
- xkcd-sucks 8y ago
  Because the majority of people, who probably include people richer than you whom you beg for money, personally enjoy waking up early and they feel like their personal preferences are moral absolutes.
anderspitman 8y ago
I'm naturally a night owl. My best sleep seems to happen between 7-9AM. However, I recently started getting up at 5AM. It was hard at first. It took a solid month before I started sleeping well again. However, I feel the tradeoffs have absolutely been worth it. Before, I worked on my side projects after work. The amount of brain power I had left at the end of the day was incredibly variable and completely dependent on how the day had gone. Now, I do the things that are most important to me first thing in the morning. I feel far more productive. It's been awesome. Also, I don't use caffeine at all.
- oarabbus_ 8y ago
  I'd argue you aren't "naturally a night owl" if that is the case.
  - slothtrop 8y ago
    I'd argue it's mostly behavioral tendency rather than a circadian rhythm's own tendency.
  - anderspitman 8y ago
    As I said, it's taking a long time to adjust. I've previously consistently gotten up at 630AM every day, and it never felt as natural as waking up at 830-900. I still think those are the hours my body most wants to sleep, but it's not so hardwired that I can't choose a different schedule.
- yibg 8y ago
  Interesting. This implies work gets the remaining variable mental energy. I’m all for having side projects, but given enough time, but not enough mental energy, which should get the leftover and presumably less productive bits?
  - anderspitman 8y ago
    Not necessarily. Before, I would usually do side projects after 11PM. Now I rarely code after 7PM, at work.
jpatokal 8y ago
The other secret must be not having kids. Or maybe I need to extend my evening routine to dropping them off at school/childcare the night before, which would both reduce the time needed for my morning routine and guarantee quality sleep!
lr4444lr 8y ago
Try doing all that having children under the age of 5.
NiceGuy_Ty 8y ago
My secret: got a dog. My awake/sleep cycle shifted 3 hours earlier overnight.
mark_l_watson 8y ago
Great ideas. Article bookmarked. I already do some of Nick's suggestions, like lay out clothes at night and organize food. Setting priorities of night life vs. productive mornings is easy for me except for about once a week when we go out at night for entertainment.
SubiculumCode 8y ago
I have work. I have family. But where is the "me" time: Well for me, it is when everyone else is in bed ( 10PM-> ).
aashishkoirala 8y ago
Do any of these "I get up and meditate" people have infants/toddlers/little kids? Now THAT would get my interest.
ykevinator 8y ago
Get over yourself
- dang 8y ago
  Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News?
snarfy 8y ago
> No drugs or goofy supplements other than my medium cup of Starbuck coffee every morning around 5:30am, plus a booster cup around midday. You have no idea how much coffee affects your sleep and energy levels until you quit drinking it. Before I quit drinking coffee, when I got home from work I was done for the day. I had a 'boring' evening routine because I had no mental energy to do anything other than veg on youtube videos and pass out early. Since I've quit, I have the same morning routine, but when I get home the productivity continues into the evenings. I feel like I have my teenage energy again. I always wondered what changed or if it's just me getting old, but no, it's because I started drinking coffee at one of my jobs in my early thirties.
hanging 8y ago
I'm not comfortable taking productivity advice from somebody who still uses a typewriter. (See the photo)
amriksohata 8y ago
The electrification of the night (light bulb, then tvs, then mobile phones) has forced people deeper into the night. Ironically, slightly unrelated, but Hindu texts speak that Rakshas (demons) that come out in the night and that the best take to wake and start the day is Brahmamuhurtha.

187 points by joeyespo 8y ago

I think the key point here that was left unmentioned is that the writer seems to be working from home. If I had to get ready to leave the home and commute every day, I think a lot of my morning time would be spent just getting ready and commuting. This is one of the chief reasons I prefer to work from home: the productivity gains one gets from having free time in the morning to work. EDIT: I just noticed that the author does commute. Still, I'm not sure I'd be productive if I had to commute an hour each way every day.

Novashi 8y ago
Plus they're likely doing something they enjoy.
allannienhuis 8y ago
He explicitly says in the article that he arrives at his office by 6am. That said, I suspect he doesn't have a 1.5 hr commute like many do (and I used to have, at times). Working from home does indeed provide a tremendous advantage, particularly with those quiet early morning hours.
- wolco 8y ago
  Getting to work by 6am usually means he drove without many cars on the road.
  - erinnh 8y ago
    This is specifically the reason why I changed from a person that got in barely at 10am to somebody that comes in at 6am. Way less traffic and that cuts my commute down by half. (1hour to 30 min) And I found I actually like 2-3 hours of no distractions at the beginning of the day. When I came in at 10am, it was 0-100 almost immediately because somebody always wanted something. Took me a good month though to actually learn to go to sleep before 11pm. Originally whenever I slept before 11pm, even if I was dead tired, I would wake up at 2-3 am and not be able to sleep again.
    - slededit 8y ago
      If you had pushed it just a little bit farther to 11am you would have been commuting in the daytime lull and had the same benefits.
      - cimmanom 8y ago
        Probably depends on where you live/work. My experience is that the roads go from empty to busy around 6:30 and start to get seriously clogged around 7:15. They're worst 8:15 - 9:30, but 11-2:30 is pretty similar to 7:45, partly because of double-parked trucks everywhere.
      - erinnh 8y ago
        Not possible with my employer. 10am is the latest I am allowed to arrive. And to be honest, I already hated being in office at 8pm some times, so being out from work at 3/4pm is also a plus in my book.
  - mykowebhn 8y ago
    Sounds like the key to a productive, quiet morning is to work from home, or get up at 4:30am in order to avoid traffic and get to work by 6am. I think I prefer the former.

cududa 8y ago

This missed the fact that there’s a massive body of evidence showing people have different genetic predispositions to being morning people versus night owls

colordrops 8y ago
I don't think that's what this article is about. Everyone has predispositions. There are some techniques that work for many people. This person is just sharing theirs in case it helps someone else.
Bahamut 8y ago
Even so, this can be changed via environment. I had a big predisposition to being a night owl in the past, often sleeping between 1 - 3 am, but after I enlisted in the military, being an early bird has stuck with me ever since. I often wake up 5-6 am and go to sleep ~10-11 pm, sometimes closer to 9, sometimes later. For me, not using alarms to wake up in general, and sleeping earlier works wonders. I also adjusted to having less sleep as a result of the forced sleeplessness of military life.
mykowebhn 8y ago
Extremely small sample size (of two), but I used to be a night owl, and in my old(er) age I've definitely become a morning person. Same with my wife. It's not unusual for us to be in bed by 8pm. My point is that being a morning/night person might be changeable.
- rsuelzer 8y ago
  It is a fact that as we age we prefer to go to bed earlier. There is a good evolutionary explanation for this. It makes sense that teenagers with better eye sight would stay up late to watch over the tribe / livestock at night, this predisposition for younger people to be night owls benefited the survival of the species.
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blaze_run 8y ago

I don't understand why productive, morning people are perceived as annoying.

pavel_lishin 8y ago
As a night owl, it's because often time by the time I get to work and am still ramping up my day, they're going at full speed and expect me to do the same.
johnchristopher 8y ago
They usually take everything at face value. /s

kough 8y ago

The way I've switched from a 'wake-at-2-pm' kind of person to a 'wake-at-6-am' kind of person is setting an alarm, popping 200mg caffeine + 200mg modafinil, then going back to bed. In 10 minutes I'll be right back up and ready to go to the gym and go about my day. I've started dialing back the modafinil since it seems unnecessary to get up anymore and I have some ethical concerns (see comment below.) I'll also +1 the friction removal concept -- laying out my gym clothes the night before really helps me get out the door as soon as I'm up in the morning. Otherwise, I'll tend to want to go back to bed.

felipemnoa 8y ago
>>200mg caffeine I used to be a big caffeine drinker. In my experience the problem with caffeine is that your body's tolerance to it seems to increase and so you need to keep increasing the dosage in order to get the same effect. It ended up being a net negative for me. I've noticed that the best way to wake up early is simply to go to sleep early. Takes a bit of work at the beginning if you've developed some bad habits but eventually you can get used to it. Seems to be more mental than physical. Also, caffeine should really be used only for emergencies in my opinion. Like if you've had very little sleep but you still need to be productive. Other than that I would stay away from it. Your body really does not need daily doses of caffeine to function, just like it does not need nicotine nor alcohol nor any other drug (assuming no medical need). They are just net negatives. Drink green tea if you really feel like having some mild stimulant every day.
- mnbvkhgvmj 8y ago
  Isn't green tea quite high in caffeine?
  - toomuchtodo 8y ago
    It is, but it also has L-Theanine, which moderates some of the effects of the caffeine you're consuming in green tea. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18681988 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18681988 (The combined effects of L-theanine and caffeine on cognitive performance and mood)

reneberlin 8y ago

Instead of focussing of being externally useful / abused - please consider: internal, subjective rules to obey. You are more than an experiment on short-living, abandoned batteries for the society you feel to be living a standard for.

Klathmon 8y ago
And your feelings toward a purpose in life aren't objectively right either. If I want to spend my short time on this planet in a more productive way so I can do more in my life, that's my choice and I'm not making a mistake or doing it wrong. Do what you feel you need to do, but don't pretend like I'm living life wrong just because I'm different.
gatherhunterer 8y ago
Just because you are doing work does not mean that you are a cog. Many people do work that is meaningful for them. There is no shame in being productive.

Mizza 8y ago

Fuck this. I'm a night time person and I feel like I'm constantly punished by a society that places a moral value on waking up early. In all seriousness, I'm thinking about starting a "night company" for night time people. Come in at 2, work until 10. Is there anybody out there who'd be interested in something like that?

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ams6110 8y ago
Yes, but they're all single or otherwise have no family obligations. Once you have a family and have to deal with school and other activities it's pretty hard to deviate much from the normal 9-5 workday.
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- AndrewKemendo 8y ago
  No that's bogus. I have three kids and am very much a night person. Usually in bed around 2.
  - ramphastidae 8y ago
    Are you responsible for getting your kids to school? The average US school day starts at 8 AM.
    - TomMarius 8y ago
      In my country kids use their foot to get to the school, even small kids (usually starting at 9 years when afterschool care is not available anymore). Maybe you should start structuring your society in a way that allows people without cars to get around if you don't like that, or move to Europe.

yabatopia 8y ago

The advice in the article is very universal and not specific to early morning people. A night owl too can prepare his breakfast or lunch, make a plan or meditate before sleep and benefit from that. It takes just a few changes and the title becomes The Secret To Becoming an Annoyingly Productive Night Owl. So what, you wake up early?

inertiatic 8y ago

I don't think it's too much to claim that if you can develop a routine that makes you perform great mentally that early in the morning, you probably aren't a "night person".

kekebo 8y ago
depends if nature is generally stronger than intent
MRD85 8y ago
I'll disagree here as I'm naturally a night person but my current schedule is all early mornings due to my combination of work, study and parenting. It's not fun but I maintain it with discipline and it works out really well for productivity. If I don't need to be productive and relax a bit I'll slip into night owl mode.
rsanek 8y ago
This hasn't been my experience. My natural sleep cycle is something like 2am-10am, but for a span of 6 months I was able to develop a habit of 9:30pm-5:30am. In the morning I'd immediately go to the gym and then upon return (~7am) start doing work. It was one of the most productive periods of my life. Unfortunately, despite seeing the benefits of the early-morning schedule, over time I reverted back to my night-owl tendencies.

brightball 8y ago

I currently work with a largely European dev team and started getting up and 5am to have more work day overlap. The hardest thing for me was getting to sleep at 9pm because I’ve always struggled to get to sleep. Usually I have too much on my mind. Turns out that necessity actually forced me to figure it out. I discovered that I can get to sleep if I turn on a movie that I’ve seen many times before because it basically keeps my mind from wandering. Not kidding at all, for the last 4 months I’ve turned on Avengers Infinity War every night + the sleep timer on the TV. I’m usually out cold before “Launch 17-A” and I never make it past the Guardians scene that comes right after. Also have to sleep on my side. I’m sure it sounds crazy but it’s the only thing I’ve found that consistently works.

reubenswartz 8y ago
That would put me to sleep. :)
bobwaycott 8y ago
I do roughly the same thing anytime I want to make myself sleep, but with Futurama. :)
SllX 8y ago
Used to do this until I stopped needing to. A consistent bed time plus Rick and Morty/Venture Bros./Archer, just going from season 1 episode 1 on down the list, and then restarting once I got to the last episode at some point. Worked very well, but I think if I tried it now, I would have a more difficult time sleeping with television playing in the background now that I no longer sleep this way.
noir_lord 8y ago
Hah I do the same thing with audio books of books I’ve read many times, engaging enough to silence my thoughts but I don’t care if I fall asleep. In my case terry pratchett audio books since some of those I can almost quote entire chapters.
- 2sk21 8y ago

soufron 8y ago

One alternative solution is to schedule all of your emails so they are sent at 7 or 8am. That way you'll be annoyingly productive early in the morning, while sleeping. Best of two worlds.

listenallyall 8y ago
The "Send Later" extension for Thunderbird is terrific for this exact use case. https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/addon/send-later-3/ https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/addon/send-...

manuelgoldstein 8y ago

One reason why US stagnated and productivity (real, as indicated by inflation adjusted incomes, not the official stats) fell is because until the Civil Rights Era even middle class had house help, and women largely did not work. They could do all the things described in the article for their working husbands. It's not a secret that women's employment is largely counterproductive by itself, but the effect compounds with the absence of homemaking.

astazangasta 8y ago
I hate to break it to you, hoss, but income and productivity are not the same thing. Productivity has continued to grow at a reasonable pace since the "Civil Rights Era". Meanwhile, incomes stagnated. I.e., what you said is exactly inverted. http://i2.cdn.turner.com/money/dam/assets/150709122537-productivity-vs-income-growth-780x439.jpg http://i2.cdn.turner.com/money/dam/assets/150709122537-produ...
pie_hacker 8y ago
>> It's not a secret that women's employment is largely counterproductive by itself This kind of sexism can be quite harmful. You might want to rethink this one. >> They could do all the things described in the article for their working husbands. True, but there's no obvious reason why it shouldn't be men who do these things for their working wives. Why should one half of a marriage devote their time and effort to the other half's success rather than having their own success as well?
- manuelgoldstein 8y ago
  Their success is measured in different terms: in having children (more children than parents for sustained population). In this most important regard, they have failed.
  - dang 8y ago
    If you continue to troll HN we will ban your main account as well.

astazangasta 8y ago

No mention of children in this article, or anywhere in this thread. I guess parents are just doomed to be annoyingly unproductive, no matter how early we get up.

MRD85 8y ago
I'm a single parent of two young kids. I go to bed with them (i.e. 7:30-8pm) and I wake at 4am. They tend to wake about 6am, this gives me a solid 1.5 hours of productive time and about half an hour of muck around time.
- ttul 8y ago
  Single parent of three kids reporting in here. We make Timothy Ferris types look like total losers by 6am.
SllX 8y ago
I think it was only two or three days ago I was on HN reading a comment from a single working (Army) parent who takes a few credits every semester. It didn’t sound pleasant, and he specifically stated this was a temporary state of affairs because he is setting himself up for after he leaves the Army so he can best be there for his kid when it matters, but it was at the very least, a productive routine and lifestyle that matched his circumstances and life choices. Routine, Discipline and a regular amount of sleep, regular in this case meaning routine amount, not necessarily a lot or a little. That is my takeaway from every single not-worthless article or piece of commentary that has helped me get my own shit together. The actual details generally don’t matter, the actual lifestyle doesn’t matter, and the actual job or field of study doesn’t matter. So long as you have those three elements, you, the general you and not necessarily you specifically, can figure out the rest. The amount of caffeine consumption or lack thereof, whether you shower in the morning or at night or both, how you commute, whether you work from home or not, what you eat in the morning, et cetera. I guess in the case of two or more working adults in the same house, cooperation/division of labor is another key element in that mixture, but I am not speaking from experience, just observation, on that one. Not to discredit the difficulties of parenting, it is the hardest job in the world to do well, but somehow we’ve collectively increased our population to 7 billion of us and a not insignificant fraction of us generally turn out alright, and the how you go about it matters a little bit less than the why. The parents that are enthusiastic about and enjoy being parents will always be better than the ones that had it foisted upon them somehow, and in that sense, it is just like another job: you learn how to do it, you learn how to do it well, you make it an integral part of your day, and that means building it into your routine so that you always have time to be a parent, that way your kids don’t turn out like those of us where our parents weren’t present and we were background details, distractions, when they were.

deleted 8y ago

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camdenlock 8y ago

He glosses over his consumption of coffee way too easily. "No drugs involved! ... except for a strong shot of caffeine, a powerful stimulant, just after waking up, and again 6 hours later." No thanks. I'll listen to my body and its rhythms, producing work when opportunities arise. Restricting one's schedule artificially like this seems like a recipe for burnout and misery.

brianberns 8y ago
Amen. I stopped reading when I saw the casual caffeine addiction. Red flag. No thanks.

GoToRO 8y ago

The secret to wake up early is to sleep early. And yes, it makes a big difference to my productivity.

rland 8y ago

My 2 rules for being up and alert at 6am: 1. Get in bed by 10pm every night, no exceptions. 2. If I can't sleep after I'm in bed, it means I haven't exercised enough. So, exercise, then GOTO 1. Downside to this is that it works--after a few days of the cycle, if I try to stay up past 10, I nosedive to half-dead around 10:30.

ttul 8y ago

Does the author have kids? I’m up at 5:30am getting my kids ready for school. If I’m lucky, that process is fully complete by 8:25am when the final kids are on the school bus. If I had the luxury of a zen wake up experience, I don’t know what I would do with myself.

HereBeBeasties 8y ago
Anyone who can find the time to write such a massively long article with so little actual content in it clearly doesn't have children.
- skiman10 8y ago
  He has a daughter.
  - detaro 8y ago
    Two daughters.
Etheryte 8y ago
Having kids is a choice like any other — there are upsides as well as downsides, both of which you don't fully know in advance. I do think it's quite safe to say that quality sleep is not something to expect when you decide to have kids.

eriktrautman 8y ago

2 quick things to add. First, eat dinner much earlier if you're remotely sensitive to blood sugar movements (read: a normal human) because the difference between eating at 6 and at 8 is huge when trying to get to sleep. Second, have something you really want to wake up to do. For me, it's almost always breakfast. I can't wait to get out of bed to have the delicious thing I have every day which my body really wants.

skookumchuck 8y ago

I'm an annoyingly productive night person. Why should I change?

xkcd-sucks 8y ago
Because the majority of people, who probably include people richer than you whom you beg for money, personally enjoy waking up early and they feel like their personal preferences are moral absolutes.

anderspitman 8y ago

I'm naturally a night owl. My best sleep seems to happen between 7-9AM. However, I recently started getting up at 5AM. It was hard at first. It took a solid month before I started sleeping well again. However, I feel the tradeoffs have absolutely been worth it. Before, I worked on my side projects after work. The amount of brain power I had left at the end of the day was incredibly variable and completely dependent on how the day had gone. Now, I do the things that are most important to me first thing in the morning. I feel far more productive. It's been awesome. Also, I don't use caffeine at all.

oarabbus_ 8y ago
I'd argue you aren't "naturally a night owl" if that is the case.
- slothtrop 8y ago
  I'd argue it's mostly behavioral tendency rather than a circadian rhythm's own tendency.
- anderspitman 8y ago
  As I said, it's taking a long time to adjust. I've previously consistently gotten up at 630AM every day, and it never felt as natural as waking up at 830-900. I still think those are the hours my body most wants to sleep, but it's not so hardwired that I can't choose a different schedule.
yibg 8y ago
Interesting. This implies work gets the remaining variable mental energy. I’m all for having side projects, but given enough time, but not enough mental energy, which should get the leftover and presumably less productive bits?
- anderspitman 8y ago
  Not necessarily. Before, I would usually do side projects after 11PM. Now I rarely code after 7PM, at work.

jpatokal 8y ago

The other secret must be not having kids. Or maybe I need to extend my evening routine to dropping them off at school/childcare the night before, which would both reduce the time needed for my morning routine and guarantee quality sleep!

lr4444lr 8y ago

Try doing all that having children under the age of 5.

NiceGuy_Ty 8y ago

My secret: got a dog. My awake/sleep cycle shifted 3 hours earlier overnight.

mark_l_watson 8y ago

Great ideas. Article bookmarked. I already do some of Nick's suggestions, like lay out clothes at night and organize food. Setting priorities of night life vs. productive mornings is easy for me except for about once a week when we go out at night for entertainment.

SubiculumCode 8y ago

I have work. I have family. But where is the "me" time: Well for me, it is when everyone else is in bed ( 10PM-> ).

aashishkoirala 8y ago

Do any of these "I get up and meditate" people have infants/toddlers/little kids? Now THAT would get my interest.

ykevinator 8y ago

Get over yourself

dang 8y ago
Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News?

snarfy 8y ago

> No drugs or goofy supplements other than my medium cup of Starbuck coffee every morning around 5:30am, plus a booster cup around midday. You have no idea how much coffee affects your sleep and energy levels until you quit drinking it. Before I quit drinking coffee, when I got home from work I was done for the day. I had a 'boring' evening routine because I had no mental energy to do anything other than veg on youtube videos and pass out early. Since I've quit, I have the same morning routine, but when I get home the productivity continues into the evenings. I feel like I have my teenage energy again. I always wondered what changed or if it's just me getting old, but no, it's because I started drinking coffee at one of my jobs in my early thirties.

hanging 8y ago

I'm not comfortable taking productivity advice from somebody who still uses a typewriter. (See the photo)

amriksohata 8y ago

The electrification of the night (light bulb, then tvs, then mobile phones) has forced people deeper into the night. Ironically, slightly unrelated, but Hindu texts speak that Rakshas (demons) that come out in the night and that the best take to wake and start the day is Brahmamuhurtha.