Thoughts on Time Management
I have been working on time management recently. The goal is to be able to consistently carve out several hours of the day in which to focus on tasks important to me, including writing, photography, and education, and ideally to work on those tasks at times when I have minimal distractions and have not yet entered into the daily routines and interruptions that are part of my "work day."
I had a funny little realization (one of those obvious things that is not so obvious) about daylight and schedules.
Many of us on this great Earth (or, at least in the West) seem to think it unusual to wake up before dawn but not at all unusual to stay up after sunset. Why is that? Who knows, and really, does it matter? The point is this - if we can be awake during the dark in the evening, why can't we be awake during the dark in the morning? In fact, why not make a trade? Be asleep during the evening dark instead of during the morning dark. I am speaking, of course, about latitudes in which this makes sense. When one is near the equator one has close to 12 hours of dark and 12 hours of light, so, by necessity, one would be asleep during some daylight. And when one is near one of the poles, one has either short nights or short days, depending on the time of year, so may have times in which one must be awake during the daylight. But when one is in the more ... temperate (is that the word?) latitudes, one normally has more than 8 hours of darkness and can (theoretically) choose to be awake during the morning darkness or the evening darkness.
The advantage of choosing the morning darkness is that it tends to be a more productive time of day to be awake, with fewer distractions, so long as one can manage to get to sleep on time the night before (despite said distractions.)
It is admittedly difficult to go to bed early when surrounded by a world which goes to bed late. And it is even more difficult to go to sleep while it is still light outside. It is also ideal (when possible) to stick to a similar schedule throughout the year (perhaps only adjusting for daylight savings time).
Therefore, I did a little exercise.
I found out what time is the latest sunset for the year in my area. It is 8:21 pm, or 20:21.
I decided the time for me to go to sleep is roughly between 8:21 and 8:30 pm.
To make the transition easier, and because I have a lot of educational reading to do anyway, I decided to get to bed *with my kindle* at about 7:30 pm or as close to that as possible. I then read till I start to feel sleepy, and then switch to an audiobook until I fall asleep. This seems to work better for me than going straight to audio and leads to less likelihood of lying awake for hours getting truly nothing done (defeating the purpose of getting on an earlier schedule so as to increase productivity.) With this system, I am not technically losing time if it takes me hours to fall asleep, as I am getting valuable educational reading done, assuming I don't switch to audio too early and lie awake for hours with that. My audiobooks are also educational, although not as much as my Kindle books. With this system, if I fall asleep early, I get up early and get more work done in the morning. If I need more time to fall asleep, I at least get lots of reading done.
Obviously this only works when I have enough flexibility in my schedule to allow it. But at the moment I do. I tried it last night. It worked. It would have worked better but I messed up a setting on my phone and got woken up by a notification around midnight or so and took some time to fall back asleep. Despite this, I managed to move my wakeup time to about 5:40 am (without feeling terribly tired on waking).
I had a funny little realization (one of those obvious things that is not so obvious) about daylight and schedules.
Many of us on this great Earth (or, at least in the West) seem to think it unusual to wake up before dawn but not at all unusual to stay up after sunset. Why is that? Who knows, and really, does it matter? The point is this - if we can be awake during the dark in the evening, why can't we be awake during the dark in the morning? In fact, why not make a trade? Be asleep during the evening dark instead of during the morning dark. I am speaking, of course, about latitudes in which this makes sense. When one is near the equator one has close to 12 hours of dark and 12 hours of light, so, by necessity, one would be asleep during some daylight. And when one is near one of the poles, one has either short nights or short days, depending on the time of year, so may have times in which one must be awake during the daylight. But when one is in the more ... temperate (is that the word?) latitudes, one normally has more than 8 hours of darkness and can (theoretically) choose to be awake during the morning darkness or the evening darkness.
The advantage of choosing the morning darkness is that it tends to be a more productive time of day to be awake, with fewer distractions, so long as one can manage to get to sleep on time the night before (despite said distractions.)
It is admittedly difficult to go to bed early when surrounded by a world which goes to bed late. And it is even more difficult to go to sleep while it is still light outside. It is also ideal (when possible) to stick to a similar schedule throughout the year (perhaps only adjusting for daylight savings time).
Therefore, I did a little exercise.
I found out what time is the latest sunset for the year in my area. It is 8:21 pm, or 20:21.
I decided the time for me to go to sleep is roughly between 8:21 and 8:30 pm.
To make the transition easier, and because I have a lot of educational reading to do anyway, I decided to get to bed *with my kindle* at about 7:30 pm or as close to that as possible. I then read till I start to feel sleepy, and then switch to an audiobook until I fall asleep. This seems to work better for me than going straight to audio and leads to less likelihood of lying awake for hours getting truly nothing done (defeating the purpose of getting on an earlier schedule so as to increase productivity.) With this system, I am not technically losing time if it takes me hours to fall asleep, as I am getting valuable educational reading done, assuming I don't switch to audio too early and lie awake for hours with that. My audiobooks are also educational, although not as much as my Kindle books. With this system, if I fall asleep early, I get up early and get more work done in the morning. If I need more time to fall asleep, I at least get lots of reading done.
Obviously this only works when I have enough flexibility in my schedule to allow it. But at the moment I do. I tried it last night. It worked. It would have worked better but I messed up a setting on my phone and got woken up by a notification around midnight or so and took some time to fall back asleep. Despite this, I managed to move my wakeup time to about 5:40 am (without feeling terribly tired on waking).
I would like to say I jumped out of bed and dove straight into my morning tasks. I did not. I'm still getting used to my gradual schedule adjustments. I did lay in bed for a while - maybe 15 or 20 minutes. I mitigated this crime, however, by studying language on my phone (the language of the country in which I currently reside), and by reading and listening to some educational materials about the craft of writing. I did this until such a time as I could drag myself into an upright position, turn on a bedroom light, and begin the non supine part of my day. It worked out well. I made my coffee, did a few kitchen cleaning tasks, sat down, and did my first writing sprint (my practicing random fiction writing based on a prompt for at least 300 words, my current first-thing-in-the-morning task based on somewhat modified recommendations by a writer named Chris Fox).
So, it's working out, so far. My target is to get up by 4 am every day. I've done it before. There was a time when I was up and working at 3:30 am on a regular basis. I loved those few quiet hours of the morning, alone and to myself but with the world at my fingertips from my laptop wherever I sat. Lots of focus. Tremendous productivity. Minimal or no distractions. This could be one of the first steps I need to take if I want to achieve my writing goals ... so, here I go.
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