I’ve never been an Early Bird, I’m a night owl and further more I rarely like to wake to a forced alarm, my body is happy to let me know when it’s time to get up.
It doesn’t fare well in the world of clock living, the moon and sun rise and set like a perfect pendulum and yet we choose to be the only creature on the planet that follow a most unnatural time piece.
There is no doubt in my mind that the forced regime of rising for School is the first attempt to remould our natural body clocks and later the ridiculous 9 to 5 of the corporate work day.
50% of you will barely understand my angst, so to the other 3.5 Billion of you that are night Owls, I feel your pain.
There are two familiar sound groups to all of us, one is the sweet dark silence of the night and the distant crackle of morning Activity going on around us as we wake, the other is the echoed silence of the morning chorus and occasional noise of an awake world as we try to sleep. Neither is wrong or right.
For many thousands of years we have lived to the beat of Earths clock, some of the Villager sleeping early to be up for Gathering and Hunting, whilst others kept watch through the late hours
Winston Churchill worked until 3am and rarely woke before 9am, the world is full of night owls and late risers, Sadly the Latter is constantly scuffled by a clock we don’t even need.
This morning I woke early, 10am and thought how nice it is to rise when your mind decided to wake you.
Things won’t change, sorry. But for you night owls all I can say is this, Have your Garage sales in the Afternoon, your neighbours will mock such a late start but you will have more sales from fresher young faces than the 6am Tailgate/Garage sale that attracts a straggle of Pensioners and Tyre Kickers.
If you can work your own hours, then do it, throw away the clock and sleep when you’re tired and wake when your body chooses and above all proudly tell people not to call before 11am, your office hours are 12 till 7pm.
I have worked for many years in an office which opened at 9 and closed at 5, where the staff drink coffee till 10 between bites of a Sausage Muffin and gossip about the world, then push in 2 hours of work before lunch and return at 1pm, trying desperately to look committed until 3pm when they realise they need to get things finished before 5. Here is when the real work gets done, 3 till 5 a flurry of activity, desperately trying to finish the days work, crashing at 5 with the sigh of a busy days? work.
Since leaving that world behind, I find working from noon until 7pm is amazingly productive, I don’t break but for coffee and a snack but my, the things you can achieve when you are working to your own beat.. I’ll be honest 7pm can easily run to 9pm or later if I am enjoying myself but it doesn’t matter, I don’t need to be up early after all..
