I have a problem. I am bad a going to bed. This is something that I’ve struggled with for a very long time. While I was completing my course work for my doctorate, it was not uncommon for me to stay up until 2am and then wake up by 7:30am. This is not healthy and I realize this. At the time I had a job that was a 3 hour round trip commute once or twice a week and by the time I would arrive home and needed to finish work, it was late. I was teaching and at some points traveling almost every other week. This blog isn’t necessarily about my sleep habits, but more about something that I want to try and change or at least experiment with in the coming weeks.
As an artist, lots of performances, engagements, and networking happens late at night. Never have I been to a guitar conference or any conference for that matter where people are hanging out at 6am. It’s more that people are going to bed at 6am if anything is happening at that hour. 10 years of music school and working as an artist has turned me into the quintessential artist type. I go to bed really late and wake up early enough to do things and then work all day into the night to do my work. It’s a cycle that I’ve adapted. I don’t hate it, but I know that in the long term as life habits and routines change, I’ll want to not go to bed as late. Plus, I like my partner and I know my work habits could be better balanced.
As of late, one of the things that I spend my time at night doing is writing for this blog. I love it and I want to keep doing it and want it to get even better! I look forward to this quiet time every night after I finish practicing and before I start on freelance or administrative work. It’s my time to be creative, to explore, and to share in a different way. I have been wondering though, would this writing be better if I did it earlier in the day? Would my editing capabilities or sentences make more sense if I work on this at 8:30am or during my lunch break? These are the questions that keep me up a night.
With that in mind, I want to try an experiment. I want to try writing at a different time of the day and I want to try it in the morning. Does this mean I’ll need to go to bed earlier so that I can wake up earlier…yes? I sometimes waste time in the morning just moseying around because not every moment of my day needs to be hyper-focused or productive so I mosey. I think I could mosey a little less and write a little more though. Possibly time block moseying in at a different part of the day. Inspired by this post by Elliot Bonneville, I’m going to experiment with writing in the mornings. I haven’t decided how long I’m going to try to do this. I’m thinking that taking this experiment one day at a time will be best for me as I don’t want to put too much pressure on myself right now. Even if I don’t write in the morning, I know that I’ll get a post done regardless so there’s no need to be too obsessive. Plus, there are some other schedule things that I’m working to implement and I don’t know how much of my moseying morning time I want to give up.
All of this to say, next week at least once or twice, these posts will be written and hopefully uploaded in the morning. I like hearing people talk about their experiments and the results of such so figured it was time to start my own.
In order to see if there is a difference, my plan is to journal, just two or three sentences about if I notice any changes or feel differently about this change. We’ll see. Not projecting any results, just wanting to see how it works.
I’ll report back the results once I have enough data!
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Until tomorrow!
