A couple of hours ago, I walked into the kitchen to make some coffee. 8:45 the clock on the wall said. Wow, I thought. Is it only quarter to nine? Seems later than that. I love it when it's actually earlier than I think. I'm so used to it being later than I think.

A few minutes ago, I walked into the kitchen to grab a cold drink. 8:45 the clock on the wall said. Wow, I thought. Is it only quarter to... wait a minute. The clocks not moving. Damn, battery dead. Quick check of the microwave says 1:18am.

I am a night person. Always have been. I am not a morning person, and find it difficult to get up for work in the morning. I am lucky I have a job that lets me start later than most people - flex hours. But why is it that I am still lying in bed at 9am, unable to convince myself to wake up, while others have been up for hours? And why is it that I am wide awake at 2am, and basically have to guilt myself into going to bed?

Steve Pavlina wrote an article called “How to Be an Early Riser”. I would love to know that secret. Basically, he says, go to bed only when you are tired but force yourself to wake up early at the same time every day, even on weekends. He wakes up at 5am, but I would be happy to be able to wake up at 8:00am or even 8:30am.

His theory, basically, is that very quickly you will settle into a cycle. If you stay up too late, you still have to wake up early, so you will be tired the following night and will go to bed earlier. Eventually, you will find yourself going to bed “on time“. He claims he gets less sleep than he used to, but sleeps better.

I can't imagine trying this experiment unfortunately. Here I am at 1:30am as I type this, not yet tired. What time will I actually get tired? I know through experience that at around 3:30am I will start to get drowsy. If I was in the middle of something (reading a book, watching a movie, or something), I could stay up til 4am or 5am. So is Steve suggesting I go to bed at 3am every night and wake up at 8am? I know people can survive on only 5 hours sleep a night, but I am not one of them.

I don't have a solution for this. Maybe the one thing to take from his article is “When the alarm goes off, get up. Don't think about it. Don't go back to sleep. Get up, and get going. Just do it.” That's what I need to do.