two-week reflection

I envision sticking with this for a long while.I’m sitting here around 5am on a Saturday posting to my first real blog which I’ve been able to get up and going due to this extra *time*. Very cool. I have begun to have an insight into this extra time — that eventually the novelty will wear off and I’ll be more aware of the fact that no matter how much or little time I have, ultimately I have to determine my priorities for the use of that time. At the moment, though, this extra time is rich with possibility and preciously appreciated.

I don’t expect to gain some of the perspectives that made me curious about this, like examining life-pattern issues such as when to change clothes or shower, partly because I may have a chunk of core sleep be an ongoing part of my sleep pattern, but also because the structure of my weekday job creates a psychological ‘day’ structure. But that’s fine.

As odd as it may sound, from one perspective, I’m not actually getting *that* much less sleep than before I started this process. The month of May was somewhat unusual in that I had a firm goal that got me up at 4:30am every weekday, so I was getting 6 hours of sleep a night, and then catching up with a 7-8 hour sleep on the weekends. But even without a rigid goal like that I’d normally sleep about 6 hours a few nights a week. So if I add 100 minutes of nap time each day to my current 4 hr block of core sleep, the 5:40 time is in the same ballpark. That said, though, it *feels* **very** different and much better in two respects. First, I have a solid extra two+ productive hours during the night. Second, the rest of my time I feel more well-rested and relaxed due to the naps, which are short enough that they don’t feel like they negatively impact social or productive day-time. The biggest surprise of all has been the impact of feeling well-rested for much more of the day, coupled with the relaxed feeling of being present with a family flow instead of perceiving that family flow to come at the expense of personal free time.

My life-partner Trace was initially *very* skeptical of this experiment, but is used to such interest-immersions. She still has some concerns, like what the flow will be at an upcoming get-away weekend at a bed&breakfast (we’ll see!). But knowing how I can sometimes be rigid in my interest-immersions, she’s appreciative that I jumped into this with a clear intention of flexibility with respect to target-times for naps for instance. She’s also clearly happy about the extra chores I’ve been doing, but by far most of all, she recognizes that I seem to be *lots* more relaxed about family time. I realize I’ve said this enough that I may be giving an impression that I’m some sort of ogre normally! But much of this is internal — non-polyphasically I would have made a decision when getting home from work to not even open the laptop in order to hang out with the kids and Trace. It would have been a decision made out of a sense of responsibility, with a pang of regret for missed personal time, but then in my hang-out time I wouldn’t actively carry any regret chip on my shoulder. Yet the complete absence of having to make that kind of decision has been startlingly positive internally and apparently behaviorally.

A couple of tips, acknowledging that I’m only two weeks into this, that I think have led to this being successful so far…

• Get an alarm system that isn’t horrid. Try one that only beeps a few times, then auto-pauses for 5 minutes. I use my Palm alarm which beeps three times, then waits five minutes, then beeps again. I also set another insistent alarm to go off a minute after the first one.

• Roll out of bed right away. Never wait until the second alarm. When my alarm goes off, I don’t think, I roll out of bed immediately. Then you can stretch, or pause to let fog clear, etc. But if you lie in bed for even a few seconds, you’ll be astounded how easily you can convince yourself that it’s ok to sleep a little longer.

• If you know you’re going to some event that’ll span a nap time, plan on getting to the event a half-hour early, but park nearby and take your 20 minute nap. You won’t then be worrying about when you’ll get it in, and your friends won’t perceive this as a hassle.

• Have a list of ‘active’ (meaning non-sedentary) things to do while awaiting for the fog to clear, or if you’re feeling particularly tired. Similarly, make your sedentary tasks things you’re *really* looking forward to doing.

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