
Getting to sleep an hour earlier can make a major difference in your career and your life overall.
There are 2 major potential payoffs for hitting the hay early…
Payoff One: Get an Extra Hour of Sleep
As I discussed in an earlier post, “Are Your Sleep Habits Hurting Your Career?” you need the proper amount of shuteye in order to function efficiently and to keep your body and mind healthy. If you are one of the many people who chronically get too little sleep, this single change can make a big difference in your life:
You’ll feel better and have more energy for your work and to fulfill your worldly responsibilities, and you’ll feel better and have more energy for playtime. You’ll also think much more clearly and you’ll write faster with higher quality. And you’ll be happier doing it.
Payoff Two: Get an Extra Hour of Time
If you generally get enough sleep, you can do what I do: get up an hour earlier. I typically rise between 5:30 and 6:00 and quickly get to work on my highest priority task for the day. In effect, I get an extra hour to do what I want, be it work, exercise, socializing, or play. Frequently I take the early hour and either read or go outside to watch the sunrise, or, in winter, to see the predawn stars.
Getting up early particularly pays off in winter. I get as much work done as possible by lunchtime so I can take a long walk in early to mid-afternoon, hopefully with some sun on my face; spending time outside in winter helps maintain good mental health, which can deteriorate for many people during winter’s short days.
How to Get to Bed an Hour Earlier?
You can likely cut something out of your evening that does not bring you closer to any of your important goals. For most people this means watching an hour less of television.
Examine everything you do in the evening. What do you do that is of little or no value to your life, or does not significantly add to your happiness? Stop doing it and go to bed.
Important: If you live with a spouse or significant other, discuss why you want to go to bed earlier and enlist his or her support for the plan.
And a caveat: some people are major night owls and they are just fine going to bed at 3 a.m., thank you.
Your Take
Are you happy with when you go to bed and when you get up? Or could you benefit from going to sleep an hour earlier? Tell us below!
Excellent post John! I find going to bed and getting up an hour earlier than I’m used to is particularly helpful when I’m working on a long-term project, such as writing a book. I simply use that one hour to work on my project before I begin my usual day-to-day business, and a few weeks or months later, voilà, the project is completed, seemingly without any extra effort!
Jan, using that extra hour before everyone else is up is a great way to get a big project done. I’ve done the same thing myself.
I really needed this! Since I started working as a full time freelance writer last May, I find it difficult to wake up earlier. I wind up writing until about 2 or 3 am and wake up at 9am. However I feel more productive when I get to bed by 10pm and wake up at 6am. I guess I just need to work harder at keeping myself on a schedule, particularly since I am the master of my own schedule now.
Halona, the key is finding the schedule that works best for you. I think for most people it’s better to go to bed earlier and get up earlier. It’s also important to go to bed and get up at consistent times so your body gets used to it.
I started going to bed early when I started my business. I receive a couple of benefits from it. It allows me wind-down time to read, which helps calm my mind. And it means I am up earlier (about 1/2 hour earlier than you, John).
I take time for my coffee and newspaper so I don’t have a feeling of being rushed, but I am still on the computer plenty early. I get in a couple of hours before Mom gets up, which somehow always ends up with more than a few interruptions. 😉
Cathy, I also take some time for myself early in the morning. Frequently I walk outside with my full cup of coffee to watch the sunrise in summer or look at the stars in winter.
I love my walk to get the paper when I can admire the stars and the occasions when a full moon acts as nature’s streetlamp. 🙂
It’s so quiet and peaceful in those early hours!
I’m usually up at 5 with coffee and some spiritual reading until meditation at 6 and I’m usually in bed reading by 8 – because my couch isn’t great for stretching out… so call me a farmer… I end up usually with decent sleep.
Anne, good for you for meditating early in the morning. I used to do that many years ago, but have fallen out of the practice.
Something else folks should remember is that not everyone needs the usually-suggested 8 hours of sleep each night. Some people need more. Some people need less. For me, 7 hours is ideal. Any more and I’m sluggish the next day. Any less and I face by the early afternoon.
I’m another early riser. I get up around 4 or 4:30am so I can start work by 5. On a typical work day I finish work around noon. And you hit one of the best perks of that — having those daylight hours to do other things. Whether it’s shopping around the holidays or gardening in the spring, it’s nice to be able to spend extra time doing what I want to do before the sun sets.
I’m lucky in that my hubby had flexibility in choosing his work schedule when he started this job. He liked mine so much that he decided to do the same. In his old job he didn’t finish until 6pm, and didn’t get home until 7:30 half the time. It left him no time for anything else. Now he’s up at 4, out the door at 5, finished work at 3, and home by 4:30. He doesn’t drive home in the dark all winter just to eat dinner and hit the hay. It’s not always about having more time, but when that free time is actually available. It’s amazing how much a different sleep schedule can impact everything else in our lives. 🙂
Jenn, I find I need about 7 – 7.5 hours of sleep. Sometimes I just get 7 and then take a 10-15 minute nap in the afternoon.
One other good aspect of your husband’s schedule: he avoids rush-hour traffic!
I’m glad you put in that caveat about 3am though I’m not usually still awake then! I do tend to be more of a night owl than an early riser.
It’s one thing to go to bed earlier and another to actually fall asleep. I’m one of these people who can lie awake for hours. Last night for example I was awake well after midnight. You know how some people get ringing in their ears? I get a horn in mine. It sounds like someone is holding a car horn for 10 seconds or so. Then it stops and after half a minute or more the horn again. I sleep with earplugs because I’m a very light sleeper and noises will wake me up or keep me awake so I know for sure it wasn’t some errant driver circling the neighborhood hitting their car horn. Sometimes I’m still awake at 2am or later waiting for sleep though not always hearing that horn.
I can go to bed earlier but probably not fall asleep any earlier than if I was watching TV or reading a book, and often I find that those 2 activities will help me fall asleep. Getting up early makes me groggy and I’m not a coffee drinker or tea drinker or hot drink person. If I wake up at 5am or 6am I stay in bed hoping I’ll fall back to sleep because I’ve only had a few hours of sleep.
Cheryl, I think it’s important to go to bed when you have a very good chance of falling asleep. Everyone’s different on this.
I typically use a small fan for white noise. It blocks out just about all other sounds.
Sleeping in right time is very important. It gives us full energy to do better work in next day. As you mentioned if we sleep one hour before we can get more time to do our work on next day. There is a proverb – Early to bed & early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy
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Hey John,
Right now, I try to maintain my sleeping time to 7 hours a day, no more or no less (I have read about studies on sleeping – 6.5 to 7.5 hours of sleep seems to be the most efficient. Then again, it might not be the same with everyone).
I do want to sleep more (who doesn’t?). But, every time I get up (after sleeping more than 7 hours), I don’t feel refreshed. Instead, I feel tired.
But, 7 hours a day routine is working fine (I get up at 7 in the morning..meaning I stay up till 12. This helps for my reading and learning times – reading right before sleeping and learning right after I get up).
Perhaps a change is necessary. I have been thinking about adding a 90 min sleeping block to my afternoons (Most of the blogging work is done during afternoons and evening. So, this might help).
Anyways, thank you for sharing your experience, John 🙂
Jeevan, it sounds like you have a good system. What is important is what you do with your time in the evening before bed. If it is watching hours of mindless television it’s better to just turn the television off and go to sleep earlier. But if you’re doing something useful or important in your life (and this includes appropriate amounts of down time and relaxation), it’s fine to stay up ’til midnight and get up at 7.
I wish i could go to sleep earlier, even if my schedule sometimes allows it, i’ve tried it on countless attempts but i just cannot fall asleep,
i would turn and turn in bed and i just can’t sleep!
some people are just lucky, the sec they place their heads on the pillow they fall asleep, i cannot do that, even if i’m tired i need at least about 30 mins in bed so i could fall asleep.
maybe they should make tutorials how to fall asleep faster or something !:P
Many thanks and Best wishes!
Hey John,
Right Now I am able to pull up around 8 hours of sleep in a day. Going to bed at 11 and rising at 7 gives me a good night sleep and a refreshing morning.
Though I am planning on getting to bed more early to get more time to sleep 😉
I actually wrote a post about improving on your time investing a while back, and sleeping more was one of the ideas that I probably should have emphasized a little more.
There are an overwhelming amount of little things you can do to improve your daily life, and this is definitely a solid idea. I especially appreciate the concept of getting an extra hour to work, taking into consideration that it’s easy to lose focus towards the end of the day.
Great tips and definitely worth it. I always need at least 7 hours of sleep to be productive.
Nowadays my smartphone and tablet keeps me awake though…
I definately have this problem. I plan to go to sleep and then spend a lot of time on facebook or work.
Hi John! I would definitely like to go to bed earlier. It is a tad difficult at the time because of my girlfriend’s work shifts, but we are usually in bed around 10pm.
I have heard that every hour you sleep before midnight counts as two, and I have experienced there is some truth to this. Even if I sleep the same amount of hours, going to bed at 9pm instead of 10pm makes a big difference in how refreshed I feel in the morning. I think it has to do with hormones, we rest and heal much more efficiently that way.
Once my girlfriend and I can, we want to start going to bed some time between 8 and 9.
I definitely have this problem. I plan to go to sleep and then spend a lot of time on twitter or work or Facebook.
Hi John,
This is an excellent topic. I have been thinking about this aspect of my life for quite some time.
I think, two very general rules could be:
> Going to bed as early as you can – 9 pm to 10 pm seems good.
> Sleeping about 7 – 8 hours.
Of course, people vary a lot in this and so it is best to respect your unique personality and feel your own body-rhythms. I have noticed that I start feeling sleepy after 9 pm. If I allow myself to sleep soon after that, I fall asleep effortlessly. And I feel better, lighter, fresher the next morning.
However, many times I force myself to stay awake for hours, even though the body has started sending those initial signals. And when I do that, I do feel sluggish, heavier and not-so-fresh the next day.
So listening to your body seems to me the best way to decide when and how much to sleep.
Thanks for the thought-stimulating post. 🙂
Susheel.