Wednesday August 1:
I had gone to bed early the night before (around 23:00). Couldn’t catch sleep. At midnight our son wakes up crying and screaming his lungs out. I head over to comfort him. My sleep wasn’t interrupted as I wasn’t sleeping yet. During the course of the night, he would wake up several times, so no quality sleep for me and my spouse that night. She even said to me that it probably was wiser to postpone rising early a couple of days. That was tempting at that hour of night, but I need to persist. I wake from the vibration of my cellphone under the pillow. I get up and make coffee.
Thursday August 2:
Went to bed early again, but sleep hesitated to come get me. The night was a lot easier, and by the time my pillow started to vibrate, I had rested well. Out of bed again, making coffee. I remember contemplating not to make coffee, as I didn’t need it. I was wide awake. Made coffee anyway. I finished my morning stuff so early, that I had plenty of time to take the bike to work for a change.
Friday August 3:
Slept well. Waking was a little harder today, went to bed later than I had promised myself. Looked forward to having coffee. Fired up the laptop to check-in on the forums at Zen Habits. The first hour of the day consists of a very efficient round of internet-related stuff. Took the bike to work again.
Saturday August 4:
Catching sleep is getting much easier. Waking at 6:00 on Saturday was strange, and I hit snooze once. Got up anyway (my son waking up that early helped quite a lot as well). The day started strange, as the first thing I had to do was feed my son, instead of preparing my caffeine-intake. He was pretty hungry, but still tired (he’s been ill this week), so he was in bed before 7 again.
This Saturday turned out to be one of the most productive Saturday’s in months! I started with my round of the internet, cleaned the kitchen, and was doing garden work by 8:00. This level of energy lasted all day, and I’ve done more work around the house in a day, than in the past two months combined.
I get compliments for my energy, and for my good spirit in the morning 
Sunday August 5; 6:45 in the morning:
I’m sitting in the kitchen, laptop on the table, writing an article. I’ve already checked my email, comments, new incoming links, new posts in Google reader, and revisited blog posts I have commented on. This is turning out to become a routine. I had similar routines at night, but I got distracted easier at night.
I had never expected this to be so easy. There are so many “early-bird benefits”, and I have yet to find a single “night owl benefit” that I lost. Why didn’t I do this earlier?
Onwards with the challenge
Tomorrow my alarm is at 5:30. I reviewed my schedule today, I’m not going to change it. Although 4:30 might be too ambitious. Not because it’s too early to rise, but because it’s too early to go to bed. But one step at a time, we’ll see how the new time goes.
Know what? 5:30 doesn’t scare me, it’s going to be easy.
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You can be an Original too!