I knew a guy who slept in one day until five in the afternoon. He was very proud of this great achievement and spoke of it often, in the same way that men push their chests out and boast about how much they drank the night before, and young boys love to brag about how their father could beat up your father. This late riser had religious aspirations, and last I heard was living a quite life in the English countryside as a vicar, where dwindling church attendances meant he could rise at a late hour as often as he pleased as long as it wasn’t a Sunday.

My capacity for alcohol has never been great enough to warrant special attention, and I have no idea if my own father would be capable of beating up anyone else’s father, but over the years I’ve often had problems getting myself up in the morning. I’d struggle out of bed thirty minutes after the alarm first roused me, arrive at the day job an hour later still bleary eyed and yawning, do my seven and a half hours, and return home tired or frustrated to an evening devoid of anything resembling work. Weekends would get off to a similar start, with nothing worthwhile being attempted before ten in the morning.

This all changed a couple of months ago when I stumbled across a blog post by Steve Pavlina. He described his own battles with the duvet, and laid down a solution so simple I was determined to give it a try. There were no outlandish meditation techniques, no unusual diets involving lentils or other foreign foods, and no ten step program to be attempted over a nine week period. It was simply a case of going to bed when you were tired, and getting up at the same time every morning.

I set my alarm clock for five a.m. and vowed to stick it out for two weeks. That first morning was hell. I’d had less than four hours sleep the night before, having gone to bed at my usual time of one a.m. The second day I woke bright and fresh from eight hours of uninterrupted slumber. Who’d have thought a grown man could fall asleep before the ten o’clock news? Day three was hell again, but by the end of the week the routine was set. I’d fall into bed at eleven each evening and wake every morning just in time to switch the alarm off before its shrill scream deafened me at five o’clock.

Over the years, I’ve always found I did my best work in the morning. This has meant learning to juggle things so that any task requiring even a hint of creativity or concentration gets slotted in before lunch, leaving the afternoons for the boring drudgery that forms the least interesting part of every job. The downside of course, was that by the time evening rolled around my brain had all but shut down - not the best time to attempt to ignite a spark of creativity.

The new sleeping regime turned this typical day on its head, allowing me to spend the best hours of the morning working on my own projects. It’s very uplifting to leave for work at eight o’clock with two productive hours already under your belt. The frustrations that often accompany fruitless evenings seemed to vanish, as there’s nothing like getting a lot of work done earlier in the day to spur you on to do more.

It’s two months later and the alarm clock is still set for five a.m. - seven days a week.

So for those of you still rising at a respectable hour, I’d urge you to try getting out of bed a little earlier, and don’t give up too easily - the first week will be rough, but the benefits make it all worth while.

Disclaimer:
Should anyone at the nine to five stumble across this post, I must point out that it’s all a complete fabrication. I never rise from my bed before seven thirty in the morning, never spend any time on work whose sole purpose is not to make more money for the company, and always turn up at the office fresh and eager to expend my creative juices for the greater corporate good. Go company! Yeah for big business! Please don’t fire me.