Waking Up Early vs. Sleeping-In
A Tale of My Productivity Over the Past Two Days
I’ve seen a lot of Medium articles lately talking about the benefits of waking-up early, and the correlation between waking early, having a productive day, and being a successful person long-term.
I’m truly impressed by the early-morning routine, and it makes total sense how such a routine yields good results.
Most of these early risers suggest that they wake up around 4 or 5AM each morning — meditate, eat something, exercise, answer emails, write. Overall conquering a lot before most work days begin, perhaps around 8AM or 9AM.
Now, I’m not typically an early morning kind of guy. I can do it; I wish I would do it consistently. But it’s not my preference. I enjoy late nights too much, and I won’t get much accomplished off of 2 or 3 hours of sleep.
But by waking up later, I don’t feel like I’m automatically less productive or at a disadvantage compared to the people who are up at 5AM. I’m willing to still be grinding away on an assignment or a project until 9 or 10PM, if not later.
Incidentally, I’ve found myself in the midst of a mini-experiment, as regards to waking up early or late.
Long-story (or background) short: there’s a lot I want to get done over the next few weeks, leading up to an entire week off.
Yesterday I hopped out of bed earlyish (at least for my standards). And today I slept-in.
Here are the results.
Thursday, March 1st
7:30AM — Woke up.
7:45AM — Got coffee from Dunkin’.
8:00AM — Started reading “At Home in the Heart of Appalachia” for my Appalachian Folklore grad class.
9:30AM — Snack break/folded laundry.
10:00AM — Read some more.
10:30AM — Power napped.
11:00AM — Wrote yesterday’s Medium article.
Noon — Grocery shopped.
1:00PM — Cooked lunch.
2:00PM — Power napped for the second time.
2:30PM — Resumed and finished reading.
3:30PM — Went for a (somewhat meditative) walk.
4:15PM — Showered (finally).
4:30PM-6:00PM — Edited an essay.
Friday, March 2nd
9:00AM — Woke up to phone’s alarm; promptly turned it off and slept more.
11:00AM — Woke up, but for real this time.
11:15AM — Read for class.
Noon — Ate breakfast/lunch (BBQ — quite good).
1:30PM — Read about ten pages of a book before falling back asleep.
3:30PM — Woke up and realized I’d wasted most of the day already.
4:00PM-6:00PM — Caught up on the reading that I’d intended to do much earlier.
6:30PM — Well, here I am…writing this article, wondering how much more I am truly going to get accomplished afterwards.
Clearly, Thursday was a more productive day for me than today (Friday).
There are still a handful of things I’d ideally like to do today — workout, shower, eat dinner.
Perhaps waking up early is the best method. But is it earlier the better? The earlier you wake equals the more productive and successful you are? I don’t know.
Many other variables factor into how productive one’s day is or is not, and I’m not prepared to advocate for waking up early versus sleeping-in as being the absolute right answer.
But I’m going to keep tinkering around with my own daily routine —because I can only figure out what works best for me.
