Anyone tried waking up an hour earlier?

[Travel memoir21]

I read this in the book - ‘ Don’t sweat the small stuff’, to wake up an hour earlier so you can have more ‘ me time’ during the day. You can have more quiet time, pour yourself a cup of coffee or tea and read a good book, listen to music or read current events etc. Anyone tried this?

 

[BackInTheGame78]

Depends on what time you are going to bed.

If waking up and hour early means you are shorting yourself on sleep don't bother.

 

[FlexpertHamilton]

I read this in the book - ‘ Don’t sweat the small stuff’, to wake up an hour earlier so you can have more ‘ me time’ during the day. You can have more quiet time, pour yourself a cup of coffee or tea and read a good book, listen to music or read current events etc. Anyone tried this?h

This sort of idea is really popular right now and it's nonsense.

You cannot outsmart Father Time. There's no such thing as gaining more time. Any attempt to gain more time just causes you to lose more time somewhere else.

All these people who talk about things like waking up at 3am and "starting their day" before everyone else don't seem to acknowledge they are also ending their day sooner (unless they enjoy chronic sleep deprivation and the early onset dementia that results from it).

And besides, why stop there? Why not wake up at 11pm and beat out the competition by working on the next day before it even starts?

This sort of logic fails with any examination.

I will say the idea of not rushing things might be valid - giving yourself some breathing room probably lowers stress and all that which is good. But that depends on your preferences and lifestyle. Personally, I prefer to work from home and wake up literally 5-10 minutes before I start so I can stay up later in the evening and still get enough sleep. I wake up on the clock, since I'm getting paid for it. You don't get paid for the 1-2 hours you waste before you punch in. That time is gone and you will never get it back.

If we're talking purely about leisure, it still doesn't make a whole lotta sense unless your only goal is to maximize the amount of time you're spending in sunlight. And unless you live in the Arctic circle I think there is plenty of time in any given day to get some sunshine.

 

[Mike32ct]

I usually only get up extra early for a specific purpose. I might want to get some other work finished up before the office gets busy, or maybe I want to do a project around the house and be done early to enjoy the rest of my day off. But I always try to go to bed early the night before to compensate.

Getting up very early for leisure? It sounds very nice in theory, but I haven’t had any luck with it. My newspaper delivery time is all over the place. Sometimes 3am (great), sometimes 8 am, and sometimes they forget and I get two papers the following day lol. I’d love to go out for an early breakfast but the local diners don’t open until 6am. I’m getting ready for work by then.

 

[zekko]

I'm lucky if I don't get up an hour later.
Anyway, sleep is important, it's not a good idea to short yourself, especially if you are active physically.

I'm guessing this sort of thing works better for some people than others. I used to work with a guy who only needed about four hours sleep a night, he functioned at a pretty high level so it didn't seem to hurt him any. I couldn't do it though, not long term.