Turns out there are two 4 o’clocks every day.
I’ve spent large sections of the past few days more or less incoherent because of this fact. Not because it’s such an amazing revelation that I’m left speechless, but because I’ve been awake and working for both of those 4 o’clocks each day. While I’m still in the process of adjusting my internal chronometer, I find it difficult to make complete sentences at certain times of the day.
After a long period of trial and error – followed by another long period of denial – I’ve finally admitted that my most productive hours are those darkest before the dawn. In defeat, I’ve started setting my alarm clock to 3.45am and, once I’ve had a coffee, I sit down at my computer for the three hours before breakfast. 50 minutes on, 10 minutes off… typing the thesis.
The thesis.
Russell Brown commented in a Sunday Star Times article that weblogging is the journalistic equivalent of sprinting (or words to that effect). If so, then a thesis is an endurance event. Not like a marathon, but more like a Round The World yacht race. Once you’re on, you can’t get off – and your chances of drowning are worryingly significant. You’ll certainly look a wreck when you come out the other side.
You see, I’m fast approaching my deadline – but I’m not approaching the end of my thesis. That happens when you’re so easily distracted (or, as I like to put it – interested in many and varied things). Hence the regime.
Going to bed at more or less the same time as my 11 year-old son is a small price to pay for getting through this body of work. For some reason, despite my propensity to stay up till way past midnight, I find I’m completely incapable of any real work much past 9pm. Getting up early means I can actually put in a concentrated effort when nobody’s around, nothing will draw my interest, no-one phones and (to be honest) there’s nothing on the telly that I’ll get distracted by.
The payoff is that I have a valid excuse for my much-loved afternoon naps. Call me geriatric, but I’m a huge fan of the 20-minute snooze. I have the distinct advantage of the ability to shut down on request. I’m like one of those dolls whose eyes shut automatically when you tip them back past about 45 degrees. I’m completely incapable of reading in bed as a result, but I can go to sleep within seconds of lying down.
Between the early bedtime and the afternoon couch time, I’m starting to cope with the 4am start.
I did it once before when I produced a breakfast show, but that was awful. Never doing that again. I’d wake up several times every morning between 1am and 4am, yelling “F***!!!!”, convinced I’d overslept. Not the best way to start the day.
By comparison, this is entirely civilised.
Okay – 10 minute break over. Refill the coffee, and back to work.
