3 ms·

Waking up early works but only if your kids don't have a variable time range, say 5:30 - 7:00, when they get up :)

by xattt 3y ago

DoingIsLearning 3y ago
Haha First thing I thought when I read this. Waking up early to have some free focus time is what I _used_ to do. Now I can sometimes squeeze some late nights but not as productive cause I am half dead by then.
- sanderjd 3y ago
  To some extent it works for me to take like an intuitive estimate for the rolling average of earliest kid wake up time over the last couple weeks, and then subtracting an hour and a half. But this doesn't work with infants or for like a month around both daylight savings time switch.
- mrweasel 3y ago
  Children are fun, but they will get in the way of productivity. Get up early, they learn that at get up as well. Trying to work in the evening, I'm getting to old to work past 20:00. Sadly my most productive time, the time where I feel like doing the most work, is between 13:30 and 18:00, which has a pretty big overlap with "picking up kids, getting dinner ready and other household chores".
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    > Sadly my most productive time, the time where I feel like doing the most work, is between 13:30 and 18:00, which has a pretty big overlap with "picking up kids, getting dinner ready and other household chores". Me too, I almost blurted out something like this to wife today - that I can't help it, my best hours seem to be between ~13:00 and 19:00, which is exactly the time that's torpedoed by a series of distractors like "dinner", "picking kids up from facilities", and everything else that's going on. By the time we're clear of all that, I'm too mentally or emotionally drained to do or enjoy anything.
    - xattt 3y ago
      Thank you for saying this out loud. I thought I was the only one. I’m doing grad school right now, while working full-time while maintaining family responsibilities. My ways of working and achieving during undergrad (mid-afternoon to late evening sessions) are not mapping well to grad studies. Getting up early is hap-hazard and working late at night leaves me dead tired for the next morning. However, I’m glad that my kids are getting the best of me during my peak productivity time.
- yoyohello13 3y ago
  Once they become teenagers, you'll have plenty of time in the morning before they wake.
  - DoingIsLearning 3y ago
    That's my mistake now, I keep making new ones. :)
sanderjd 3y ago
haha yep. You can chart my level of productivity and ambition as an exact correlation with my kids' age and sleep stability. Not to mention daylight savings shifts screwing everything up twice a year :)
CalRobert 3y ago
Not to mention that any noise louder than a whisper and they wake up (happily) screaming about how daddy's up and is it time for breakfast and what are we doing today and can we [go to space/get an elephant/move to Paris/...]?
jebarker 3y ago
Or if you have children or pets that still occasionally wake up needing something in the middle of the night. Once you've been up randomly for 30 mins somewhere between midnight and 3am, getting up at 4am is much less appealing

Waking up early works but only if your kids don't have a variable time range, say 5:30 - 7:00, when they get up :)

by xattt 3y ago

Waking up early works but only if your kids don't have a variable time range, say 5:30 - 7:00, when they get up :)

Haha First thing I thought when I read this. Waking up early to have some free focus time is what I _used_ to do. Now I can sometimes squeeze some late nights but not as productive cause I am half dead by then.

sanderjd 3y ago
To some extent it works for me to take like an intuitive estimate for the rolling average of earliest kid wake up time over the last couple weeks, and then subtracting an hour and a half. But this doesn't work with infants or for like a month around both daylight savings time switch.
mrweasel 3y ago
Children are fun, but they will get in the way of productivity. Get up early, they learn that at get up as well. Trying to work in the evening, I'm getting to old to work past 20:00. Sadly my most productive time, the time where I feel like doing the most work, is between 13:30 and 18:00, which has a pretty big overlap with "picking up kids, getting dinner ready and other household chores".
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  > Sadly my most productive time, the time where I feel like doing the most work, is between 13:30 and 18:00, which has a pretty big overlap with "picking up kids, getting dinner ready and other household chores". Me too, I almost blurted out something like this to wife today - that I can't help it, my best hours seem to be between ~13:00 and 19:00, which is exactly the time that's torpedoed by a series of distractors like "dinner", "picking kids up from facilities", and everything else that's going on. By the time we're clear of all that, I'm too mentally or emotionally drained to do or enjoy anything.
  - xattt 3y ago
    Thank you for saying this out loud. I thought I was the only one. I’m doing grad school right now, while working full-time while maintaining family responsibilities. My ways of working and achieving during undergrad (mid-afternoon to late evening sessions) are not mapping well to grad studies. Getting up early is hap-hazard and working late at night leaves me dead tired for the next morning. However, I’m glad that my kids are getting the best of me during my peak productivity time.
yoyohello13 3y ago
Once they become teenagers, you'll have plenty of time in the morning before they wake.
- DoingIsLearning 3y ago
  That's my mistake now, I keep making new ones. :)

sanderjd 3y ago

haha yep. You can chart my level of productivity and ambition as an exact correlation with my kids' age and sleep stability. Not to mention daylight savings shifts screwing everything up twice a year :)

CalRobert 3y ago

Not to mention that any noise louder than a whisper and they wake up (happily) screaming about how daddy's up and is it time for breakfast and what are we doing today and can we [go to space/get an elephant/move to Paris/...]?

jebarker 3y ago

Or if you have children or pets that still occasionally wake up needing something in the middle of the night. Once you've been up randomly for 30 mins somewhere between midnight and 3am, getting up at 4am is much less appealing