[kentosi]

I like sleeping on time and waking up early(ish). I'm slowly shifting from a night-owl into a morning person in my 30s. I love the productivity I feel and knowing that I can do a bunch of things in the morning before work, then get home in the evening and relax.

But my problem is that that I'm a single guy who needs to date and have a social life. And try as I might, all such social constructs require you to stay out late and drink a little. All of which eventually chips into the sleep, and hence how productive you are the next day.

It's really annoying having to force myself to be social at the cost of only being, say, 70% as productive the next day.

Is anyone else facing this conundrum, or can impart any hints?

[flocial]

Maintaining a sleep schedule is actually awesome but you could try "pre-sleep", kinda like "pre-gaming" on a drinking night, just a biphasic sleep version. Go home early and go to bed early. Then wake up in the middle of the night to date, socialize, and drink. Then get whatever sleep you can when you get home. Worked well during the world cup for me.

[montenegrohugo]

I can attest to this working quite well.

On a related note: In Mediterranean countries there is often the tradition of sleeping "siesta", a short nap in the afternoon. Seems to have some use.

[ColanR]

early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise...

early to rise, early to bed, makes a man healthy, wealthy and socially dead.

-- Ben Franklin, who had similar difficulties.

[rimliu]

Early to bed, early to rise: a lark.

Late to bed, late to rise: an owl.

Late to bed, early to rise: an angry bird.

[schuke]

How can a socially dead guy be healthy and wealthy though?

[krageon]

Even though I can't imagine this is a serious question: If you apply yourself at work and cook your own (varied!) meals, you will be (moderately) wealthy and (moderately) healthy. I did not mention any social time here, which makes this hypothetical person socially dead.

[slaunchwise]

A really good job with the postal service

[keerthiko]

I have the opposite problem. I'm an incurable night owl, despite having tried to shift. I thought I too would grow out of it, but I'm moving into my 30s next year and it's going stronger than ever. Such that the last time I tried to fix my schedule and be up at 0800 (by going to bed at 0100) I fainted at my desk and had to go nap, and return to staying up till 0400 and waking at 1130-1230. So it's hard for me to maintain any professional commitments before noon, which kind of sucks. Luckily my cofounders are very understanding and honestly kind of appreciate that I get a lot of work done between the end and the start of their day after we sync up.

That said, the time from 0000-0330 is amazing. For the same reasons people like to wake up really early (3+ hours before going to work), this time is (human, coworker and outdoor capitalist) distraction free, I can't run boring errands outside, so I can focus on creative work at home. It's great that it can double up as late-night partying/dating/gaming/social time. But other than maybe once-a-week for gaming, I use it for the others once a month or rarer.

There are some social costs however, besides the professional one mentioned earlier. I'm a complete corpse when trying to make morning weekend plans (breakfast/brunch, hikes, events). I get to be known as "that guy who only gets up at noon". Which makes me wonder, is waking up at 0400 so much more socially upstanding that going to bed at 0400 if I'm using my isolationist time mostly the same way? Waking up early is associated with discipline and diligence, staying up late is associated with childishness and immaturity and lack of discipline.

I't all just a trade-off. I suppose one can train for schedule flexibility, but I love my late nights.

[jpmoyn]

I think there is some moral notion ingrained in me that staying up late is just a bad thing, and being up early is a good thing. It feels so satisfying waking up really early and having a peaceful morning alone, before the hustle and bustle of the day begins. I see the parallel you draw to late night, but it just seems less wholesome to me for some reason.

[keerthiko]

Yup, I hope you and others who share your way introspect as to why it seems that way, other than just because that's the social conditioning we receive.

Here are some (strawman?) arguments that support your view, but are they actually justified/true/not-true-for-staying-up-instead?

- it takes effort to build a habit of waking up early, therefore it's good

- the hardest workers i know wake up early, it must be integral to why they're productive

- college kids stay up late, and college kids lack discipline

- being out when the sun is up is healthy for you, so sleeping through sunlight is bad for you

I feel like if businesses operated from 12pm-12am instead of 9am-9pm, all these would be flipped in favor of staying up late =/

[rootusrootus]

Those are some good arguments, though from my perspective it seems like it could be simpler.

For one, just like you can't get up early, some of us can't sleep in. Takes no effort for me to build up a habit of waking up early, my body just likes to wake up at 4:30AM. I go to bed relatively early because I'm going to be awake at 4:30AM either way so I might as well try to make a full night of sleep happen.

Other than that, I think there might be a bit of moral judgement going on, but I think it's just that the business day starts at 8:00AM and sleeping past that looks like lazy or luxury. One thing I like about working in tech is that there is less judgement there -- hell, if anything, I get more flack for waking up at the crack of dawn than my coworkers who get into the office at 10:30AM or 11:00. I'm not the only guy who gets into the office early but on my team I'm in the minority.

[mjevans]

I feel like if that schedule happened what other countries do as a siesta would become a much longer primary sleep block, maybe broken up by some private time around sunset before a pre-work nap.

[Jill_the_Pill]

Ha! As an early bird, I am often frustrated to have to wait until 9 or even 10 to get errands done!

[systemtest]

Look up DSPS / DSPD, you might “suffer” from this.

[tonyedgecombe]

You would think it should be easy to shift your sleeping window but that doesn't seem to be the case. Perhaps there is some evolutionary advantage to having part of the tribe awake early and part awake late.

[tonyedgecombe]

Perhaps you need to find a circle of friends with the same sleeping pattern. There are a few of us out there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lark_(person)#Prevalence

[systemtest]

If you go out till 1AM you can set your alarm clock a little later and send a message to your team on Slack that you will start work a little later. Then you will still get 8 hours of sleep and be more productive.

[King-Aaron]

I seem to perpetuate in the same state, it sucks. I got a puppy though, and now my free time is even thinner... But it helped.

[crazygringo]

Same exact problem.

Absolutely no idea of any solution.

[sfotm]

I wake up at 5AM every weekday, but weekends are wide open. Seems to work OK.