First day on the early wake up schedule. It was fantastic.

Last night I was able to get to sleep a little after 10 (later than I’d wanted). Woke up with the alarm at 4:30am, gathered my senses a bit, changed clothes, and drove over to the gym to get in right at 5am opening time of the YMCA. I got my standard workout routine in, including a couple of additional exercises, too. Back home by 5:45am and decided to go for a run, too. Went out for 4 miles. I was home and out of the shower before my daughter's alarm at 6:45am.

One thing I’ll say for this routine: as I expected, my sense of fulfillment and accomplishment was checked off before I even made the kids' school lunches. What happens a lot without this is that if I don’t go for the run/gym right away after the morning school drop-off, I'm not good at fitting it into the daily schedule in a way that isn’t disruptive. Even with a pretty open schedule, it’s just annoying to lose 2 solid hours in the prime middle of the day to get exercise in. And I end up wanting to cut it short just to get done. More than that, though, it’s that until I get the run in, I’m just antsy thinking about it all day. Then if I end up skipping it, I’m just irritable and unfulfilled.

Getting up early wasn’t even that hard. If sleeping by 9:30/10, I could get up at 4 and not miss any more sleep than normal. And the bad behavior of the late nights is never productive anyway.

There’s always that debate about whether you’re a morning or a night person. I've always hated this distinction. It takes the responsibility for the matter out of our hands, as if a mere accident of the universe is what let's the disciplined get their exercise in before sunrise.

It shouldn't only be about which you’re more comfortable with, or what comes easier to you. Perhaps night is biologically preferable to you, I don’t know. But I believe the morning/night preference is a function of habits, rather than biology. If your lifestyle or habit involves staying up til 3, you’ll never be a “morning person”. But if you can get to sleep by 9 or 10, you’ll just wake up at 5 on your own.

The lifestyle of getting to bed early isn’t that easy with all the temptations and kids and other expectations, for sure. But if we’re just talking about comfort with specific times of day, it’s pattern of habit.

What’s more important to me with the morning/night person discussion is what time of day you feel productive. Myself, I’m always more tuned up and able to mentally engage first thing in the morning. Depending on the activity — like programming or making shit — I can certainly stay up late getting in the zone sometimes, but I’d credit that to the activity, not the time of day. My default mode at night is doing lazy things. Whereas in the morning I want to read something, write something, get moving.

Others could be the opposite, though. And if your mental acuity is high at midnight, more power to ya; you sound like a night owl. But some people will say they’re a night owl and “not a morning person” just because they stay up late watching Netflix. That’s an uninteresting observation: No one can be raring to go at 6am if they just went to bed 3 hours before.

Anyway, I’m planning to get up early again and go for a run. And I won't be my proper "morning self" if I don't get to sleep.