Energy Management
About a month ago, I started waking up at 5:30AM on workdays.
Before that, I would normally get up at 7:00, brush my teeth, eat a bowl of cereal, and rush out to catch the bus at 7:30.
The evening bus would get me home around 5:45-6:00PM.
If I wanted to get 7 or 8 hours of sleep, I would have to got to sleep around 11 or 12.
That would leave me about 5 hours of free time per day, 6 if I wanted to feel exhausted.
I know from experience that, after work, I feel mentally tired, and I just want to relax.
(Let’s be honest, that starts after lunch.)
Point is, the best thing I can do in that scenario is not fight it but get out some chips and salsa and watch the stupidest shows or YouTube videos I can.
The only problem is that watching has a way of becoming bingeing.
I look up, and it’s time to go to sleep and do it all again.
(Sounds like the root problem is I need to work less? I agree.)
That’s a problem because even ignoring all the things I want to learn, hobbies I want to try out, and essays I want to read, I have chores and cooking to do.
And that’s why I started getting up at 5:30.
I’m taking advantage of the fast that I’m a stupid primate to reserve two hours in the morning for chores and hobbies (mainly writing at this point).
I am less likely to procrastinate in the morning.
I have an artificial deadline.
If I set a goal for myself, then I feel like I need to get it done before the bus comes.
It’s easieer to avoid getting sucked into watching random stuff in the morning.
For one thing, inertia is on my side.
But also I would just feel worse about getting up so early just to watch YouTube.
I could do that at night and sleep in.
Sure I have to go to bed around 9:30-10:30, but I hardly notice those hours missing from the evening because all I’m doing is relaxing.
Another way to look at it is that I only have about 2 or 3 periods of focused work to spend per day.
I would greatly prefer to spend on of those on my own project before work than to use them all up at work and have nothing left afterwards.
Of course it doesn’t always work out perfectly as that.
The first week I did this, I was super efficient.
I cooked nice breakfasts and all my dinners for a week, and I wrote a whole post, and I got through a lot of little things I’d been meaning to do.
As I continued doing it, I ran out of tasks that I knew I needed to do in my head, and I got less and less efficient.
Sometimes it just became more time to do nothing.
I think this whole thing is more effective if I prioritize a little the night before, so I know what task I want to get done immediately when I wake up which helps me get out of bed.
This is sort of my interpretation of energy management as discussed often by Merlin Mann of Do By Friday and Brian Tomasik in his todo lists post.
He enjoys not having a strict schedule because it allows him to work on any task that fits his current mental state.
I would also prefer to be able to do that, but since I don’t have that luxury, I’m sort of doing the opposite and trying to make my mental states predictable, so I can work on whatever I need to at the time.
I don’t think I’m prepared to recommend this strategy.
I certainly don’t think it’s for everyone.
I consider myself a morning person, and even I struggle to get up this early and feel good about working, but it’s better than the alternative.
I guess it also depends on the type of work you’re trying to get done.
I find it particularly difficult to write in the morning.
I usually like to go for a long walk to chew on my thoughts until I feel like I have to write.
It’s harder to do that straight after waking up.
Hopefully it’s at least good practice to learn to write even when I don’t want to.
And who knows, sometimes I don’t think I have a lot to say until I sit down and make myself write.
Postscript (This is a thing people do in blog posts, right?): I think I set up rss.
In case I don’t have time to figure out where to put it elsewhere, here’s a link.
Also, music recommentation for this week is At What Cost by GoldLink courtesy of my brother.