My experience with waking up early (in a dorm)

modified 31/08/2024 22:35

For the past 2 months, I’ve been experimenting with waking up at 5 AM every day. Today (<2024-01-31 Wed>), I’m bringing the experiment to an end. This is not a final decision, and I may reconsider it and re-attemt the experiment when I move to a better place, ideally one where I’m by myself.

Motivation

I tried waking up early because I thought it would help me study more. At the time, it made sense: my energy is drained after work, so when I’m home, studying is the last thing I want to do. This led me to the natural conclusion that waking up earlier would make it easier, since I would be fresh and energized after 7-8 hours of sleep. After attempting this, however, I’ve come to experience the exact opposite. I’ve found it even harder to study in the morning, and the quality of my studies has been lower than it was previously, when I would study in the eveinings, after coming home from work.

It seemed I was never fully awake, so a significant amount of effor would be spent trying not to fall asleep. I’ve found that, unless I worked on something extremely stimulating (such as an excersise, or anything else that involved actively writing code) or I could otherwise stimulate myself prior to doing the work (such as by drinking coffee, having breakfast, working out, taking a shower).

This greatly limited by study options – reading a textbook or watching a lecture, for example, wouldn’t work, even though I actively took notes and tried to think through the things I’ve read/listened to.

Living in a dorm

I live in a room with 3 other people, all of which wake up at different hours (between 7 and 12 AM). Waking up early means I have to be careful not to wake everyone up. But that’s the easy part.

In my dorm, the kitchen opens at 7 AM. Until then, all I can do is wash my face and teeth, drink water and work. I’ve found that I have most success when I don’t jump straight into doing the work, but take a few moments to enjoy the morning, ideally with a cup of coffee. I’ve got most work done in the winter break, when the kitchen would never close and I would wake up, have coffee and breakfast, and by that time, I would be wide awake and ready to work

You’re flawed if you can’t do this

Although I’ve had low expectations going into this, and tried not to blame myself if I overslept or wouldn’t feel like waking up, when it happened it felt quite demoralising.

Lessons learned and what I’m going to do next

• Waking up early worked best when I didn’t jump straight into work (had breakfast), and did something stimulating, such as working through a excersise that is neither too difficult nor too easy
• Waking up early is not a silver bullet and did not make me perform better. What works for someone doesn’t have to work for me, and vice versa. I don’t have to feel bad, or think that there’s something wrong with me.
• Shifting my sleep schedule made me feel tired earlier. Being in bed by 21:00 was quite easy for me, and by 22:00 I would be in a state where, if I closed my eyes, I would fall asleep. It was quite interesting to witness this, since I would previously be awake and energized even after midnight.
• Listening to my body doesn’t mean I’m lazy.

Instead of waking up early, I started staying up at work to study. After this, at home, I can just relax. This solves most of the problems I’ve had: I have a comfortable chair and desk, as well as an additional monitor, I have fast internet (I don’t have internet at my dorm), and, while I’m not able to work as deeply after 8 hours of work, I’ve still been able to work deeper this way than I would in the morning.