Get Up or Sleep In?

Prepping to do battle with my mortal enemy... my alarm clock.
Photo by Keattikorn

This is one of those eternal debates where everyone has chosen a side and no amount of persuasion will ever convince you to change.  Right?

Then why am I finding myself on the fence?

I've always been a late riser.  Happiness is sleeping in past 9.  But I feel like I should be getting so much more done during the day, so I've been giving those hours before 9 the hairy eyeball, trying to decide if I want to reclaim them or not.

This should be an easy decision!

Let me walk you through a typical workday:

6:20 am  Alarm starts going off.  I begin slapping the snooze button.
6:40 am  I relent, groan, roll out of bed and pull on my sweats.  I stagger down the hallway to drag my son from his bed so he can get ready for school.
6:50 am  I check my email, bleary-eyed, while my son gets ready for school.  I'm mostly on autopilot, but I am alert enough to make sure he's getting himself ready and hand out reminders as necessary.  If my daughter gets up, I send her back to bed.
7:15 am  Elias leaves for the bus stop, and I stagger back to bed.
8:30 am  My daughter begins pestering me.  I roll over and she either climbs into bed and snuggles or heads back to her own room.
9:30 am  The pestering wins out and I drag my sorry self from bed, once again feeling guilty for sleeping so long and wondering whether I could possibly handle getting up earlier.  I fix breakfast for myself and Maddie, get her hooked up with her favorite show, read email and Facebook while I eat, then start my workday at 10 am.

I could be doing a lot more with those hours in between.  Or could I?  Do I actually have it in me?  Or would I just stare at the screen for two hours waiting for my brain to wake up?

I've read plenty on resetting your circadian rhythm and whatnot.  After all, I used to work a job where I had to be in seat doing productive things by 7:30 every morning.

So how valuable is that sleep time?  The main question is -- is it more valuable than the work I could be doing during that time? 


Next week I'll experiment with getting up a bit earlier.  It's spring break for the kiddo, so I won't be getting up quite so early, so maybe it will be a way to gradually ease into it.  I'll report back on my success (or lack thereof).