This headline is probably making a few people roll their eyes.
Here I am, handing out what sounds like snake oil health advice to loyal readers. Why would anyone in their right mind make a habit of waking up at 5 AM (or going to bed before 10 PM)?
Let’s dive in—grab a cup of coffee first.
I started a little productivity experiment this past Wednesday. Since this blog had turned into “Abandoned Blog” with no new posts since March, I knew I needed to get back into the groove.
I looked to my wife for inspiration. Her simple trick: start the day early—6 AM or even 5 AM. Think you can try it?
Could going to bed before 10 PM and waking by 6 AM improve our sleep and moods? I think so.
Not exactly earth-shattering, but here I am, typing about this “big” discovery. Let’s see how a small daily change might bring some unexpected benefits.
Admittedly, I’ve never been a morning person. But life sometimes forces you to become one—school, the military, work, farming, and yes, even blogging.
A bit about our home life: the twins are four, and one of us parents now gets to “sleep in” until 7 on weekends. Still, adopting a 5 AM routine will likely end even that luxury.
I vaguely remember weekends in college when I might sleep until 10 AM. Did I miss class?
More surprising is how Mrs. Cubert has become an early riser. When we met, she was the least happy morning person—wake her at your own risk. I have the pillow marks to prove it. A few years ago she started waking at 5 AM to work out before seeing patients. Until this week, I was happy to sleep until 6:30 AM.
I’m not suggesting fewer hours of sleep. You need seven to eight solid hours a night if you want to function at a desk all day. If you’re one of the rare people who does fine on less, good for you—use that superpower. For the rest of us, our night now starts at 9:30 PM so we can get up at 5 AM.
Sleep is not something to mess with. Having twins teaches you that fast. When you miss sleep repeatedly, bad things happen to your brain and body. I track my sleep on a Fitbit, and it’s eye-opening.
Recovery—mental and physical—is the point of a good night’s sleep. Ditch electronics from the bedroom except for the alarm, and make the room as dark as possible with blackout shades. Think how good sleep must have been once humans found a safe cave away from danger.
Now that our schedules match, my wife and I no longer wake each other up. Before this, I’d come to bed an hour after she’d fallen asleep and knew I was disturbing her. Her early starts used to wake me up, too, stealing that last precious hour before work. Being in sync has fixed that—another small win for our marriage.
By the end of the day, our brains are fried. After a long day of emails, calls, and chores, it’s hard to engage with family past 9 or 10 PM.
Both of us want to unwind—catch up, watch a few YouTube clips, or stream something on Netflix. As I write this, I realize that by shifting my time, I’m not only producing more content, I’m cutting down on pointless TV time.
One less hour of TV per night is 365 hours a year. Over 30 years, that’s more than 10,000 hours. I can let my brain go on autopilot watching travel shows, or I can invest those hours into becoming a better writer and creator. That thought has re-energized me.
After a few days of this experiment, I’ve noticed big benefits. Starting the day an hour earlier gives me fresh, uninterrupted time to write. I used to waste that 1.5 hours in the evening watching Netflix. Now I claim that time for writing, and my output has gone from zero new posts to three a week—a 100% productivity boost in that sense.
Our daily goal is to wear out the kids so they’re asleep by 8:30 PM. With the early-riser plan, assuming the kids are out, we get about an hour to relax before bed. It’s not much, but life has trade-offs.
Since June ’22 my routine has been to go to bed between 9:30 and 10 PM and wake up between 6:30 and 7 AM. I need 8 to 9 hours of sleep to feel refreshed and get sleep scores above 90%. The biggest change? Waking up without an alarm. It’s pure heaven.
The findings from my experiment over these past few years are: