March 2010

A final word on this sleep challenge thing...

So as much as I tried to dress up my last post about this LifeHack 5 Day Sleep and Wake Up Early Toaster Strudel Jabberwockey challenge, I woke up at 9 this morning instead of 6. So I guess I failed the challenge. I'll wake up an hour earlier tomorrow, or I won't. Come Monday, I'm waking up at 6, having my coffee and going about my workday. Whatever.

To be blunt, the idea of writing about when I wake up in the morning is boring the piss out of me, so this is the last I speak of the subject. I'll be back when I have an opinion on something interesting.

LifeHack Challenge - Day 1: Sleeping tonight - it's just a dream

While contemplating the merits of participating in the LifeHack: Become An Early Riser In 5 Days Challenge early yesterday morning at around 7 after having been awake all night, I didn't think very far ahead to what it would be like actually starting it.

Originally vowing to get up at 6am each day to make way for waking up with enough leisure time to shake the cobwebs and get in a little exercise before heading off to work, I set the bar for Day 1 pretty damn high, rolling back my Monday wakeup time to 3am to catch some live mixed martial arts broadcast from Japan where they're 14 hours ahead.

No, little did I think of how difficult it is for me to hop into bed and simply pass out, especially when I've been awake slightly less than 12 hours to begin with. So, with an hour and a half left until my obscenely loud alarm clock is set to jolt my heart rate through the ceiling, I've elected to stay awake. All night. And all day.

I've done this sort of thing before when I knew I had to shed my nocturnal behaviour for that of a daybreaker. The sun burns through the retinas just a bit hotter, and the mind tends to wander off in completely new directions, or conjure up thoughts you were sure you'd forgotten. But hell, it's just one day. It's just a bit more lost traction on my running shoes than normal from a more pronounced dragging of my feet. It's no big deal.

As I scroll through some of the comments on the LifeHack Challenge page, I notice a lot of people who want to wake up an hour earlier, or a half hour. There are some who already sound defeated, saying they'll "try" to get up earlier. I seem to be the only one admitting that I'm coming back from the other end of town where the sun has been a stranger.

So, with day 1 less than 2 hours old, I am up to the challenge... up all night.

I broke my blog layout and I'm waking up super early from now on.

So the main reason I haven't posted in awhile is because the blog software I use broke into a million pieces. Specifically I was gullible enough to rely on its ability to back up the code and archives I put together over the past few months rather than keeping things in a separate location in plain text form. The result is I put everything back together today, pieced together the archived posts as best I could and now it's rather plain looking. I'm working on a kickass new layout, but that won't be coming for a bit, and the reason why ties into the rest of the post.

Someone pasted a link to this Lifehack Challenge: Become an Early Riser in 5 Days. Sounds interesting enough, and the timing couldn't be more perfect: I just got a new job that I start a week from tomorrow and could really use a quick turnaround from my recent insomnia-induced habits.

So, the goal is 6am every day for the next week so I can hit the ground running. There's no worse feeling than dragging yourself out of bed at the last possible minute to simultaneously take a gulp of coffee while brushing your teeth and chomping a piece of toast.

So why am I blogging about this? Well, there is the slim chance that Lifehack will publish this and follow my progress. But more or less this is a personal challenge that has the added pressure of public scrutiny in case I fail. If I fail, I'll write about it and take my lumps. I normally hate these kinds of blogs and as you can see from my archived posts I write about things unrelated to my mundane existence, but the hell with it. My life revolves around technology enough as it is that I might as well use whatever tool I can for motivation.

The first day will be the worst, because as an admitted MMA junkie, both the UFC and Dream are holding major fight cards, the latter of which starts at when I plan to wake up, at *3am*, as it takes place in Tokyo, Japan. The fun of watching my favourite fighters beat the living shit out of each other along with a heaping pot of coffee will hopefully be enough to keep me awake.

So, check back tomorrow as I post updates on how things go if the idea of reading about me waking up early doesn't bore YOU to sleep.