Journal: News & Comment

Night owl

Permalinks to this entry: individual page or in monthly context. For more material from my journal, visit my home page or the archive.

Some years ago, in one of those fallow summers when I was in university but didn't yet have to make a lot of money to get by, I discovered my natural sleep schedule, or at least what it was then. With no other constraints, I tended to go to bed around 2 a.m. and wake up around 10 a.m., with eight hours being plenty of sleep.

Even today, I seem to be most productive at night. Yesterday I started on a copy editing project at 10 p.m., after my wife and daughters were asleep. I finished four hours later, accomplishing what probably would have taken me at least six hours during the day, even if I were alone in the house. I felt great for completing the job and being productive, even at 2 a.m., and even though I have a cold. Still wide awake, I posted some emergency Web site changes for a colleague, for good measure, then went to bed at 2:30.

Then, of course, my daughters woke me at 7 a.m. -- things are different for Derek in 2003.

 |