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Me and Waking and Calendars and Such
Sep. 7th, 2023 08:28 pmIn the dark part of the year, I use a "light alarm clock" to trigger me to wake at the right time, because I'm very fixated on light cycles. In high summer, I don't bother with any sort of alarm clock, even on days when I'm working in Berkeley and need to be up by 6am. So a significant part of the turning of the seasons for me is paying attention to when I need to set the light-alarm for commute days, and when I need to set it for WFH days, and when I can stop setting it for those things.
It's turning toward autumn, so I definitely need to set it for commute days, but something clicked over in me and I'm just leaving it set all the time and once again working on getting in an hour or so of personal work before I "go to the office" (i.e., sit down at the work computer in my home office).
I don't tend to have creative brain function in the evenings these days, which I ascribe partly to how draining my day-job is, and partly to the impossibility of having perfect vision correction for extended screen time. (I have 3 sets of lenses that I use in various contexts and which I use depends on what set-up I'm using and how my eyes are feeling on any given day). But getting in morning work depends on actually getting out of bed at a reasonable time instead of lazing in bed listening to audiobooks and playing on my phone. Or going back to sleep for another half hour or so. I joke that the biggest benefit of WFH is that I finally get Enough Sleep all the time.
But since it's autumn, and I need the light-alarm for commute days, it's only a minor adjust met to leave the alarm set all the time, which stimulates me to get out of bed with time to spare. I actually have two alarms programmed. One at 5:30am and one at 6:30am. For commutes, I need the 5:30 one (which gets me out of bed no later than 6 and on the road by 6:30). For ordinary dark-season days, I tend to use the 6:30am alarm, which gets me out of bed by 7, so I'm good to go by 7:30 and don't have to sit at the work computer until 8. If I leave both alarms set for an ordinary day, then--as long as I don't just go back to sleep with the light on--I can be up, dressed, and ready by 6:30am which hypothetically gives me half an hour for breakfast and whatnoe and an hour for personal projects that require a fresh brain.
I haven't done that for quite some time, but I did it today. Maybe I'll keep it up?
It's turning toward autumn, so I definitely need to set it for commute days, but something clicked over in me and I'm just leaving it set all the time and once again working on getting in an hour or so of personal work before I "go to the office" (i.e., sit down at the work computer in my home office).
I don't tend to have creative brain function in the evenings these days, which I ascribe partly to how draining my day-job is, and partly to the impossibility of having perfect vision correction for extended screen time. (I have 3 sets of lenses that I use in various contexts and which I use depends on what set-up I'm using and how my eyes are feeling on any given day). But getting in morning work depends on actually getting out of bed at a reasonable time instead of lazing in bed listening to audiobooks and playing on my phone. Or going back to sleep for another half hour or so. I joke that the biggest benefit of WFH is that I finally get Enough Sleep all the time.
But since it's autumn, and I need the light-alarm for commute days, it's only a minor adjust met to leave the alarm set all the time, which stimulates me to get out of bed with time to spare. I actually have two alarms programmed. One at 5:30am and one at 6:30am. For commutes, I need the 5:30 one (which gets me out of bed no later than 6 and on the road by 6:30). For ordinary dark-season days, I tend to use the 6:30am alarm, which gets me out of bed by 7, so I'm good to go by 7:30 and don't have to sit at the work computer until 8. If I leave both alarms set for an ordinary day, then--as long as I don't just go back to sleep with the light on--I can be up, dressed, and ready by 6:30am which hypothetically gives me half an hour for breakfast and whatnoe and an hour for personal projects that require a fresh brain.
I haven't done that for quite some time, but I did it today. Maybe I'll keep it up?
