Waking up early: Mission Impossible

I am an academic, which is a great job to escape the horrible constraints of the 9 to 5 life, such as having to dress up to go to work every morning, driving to work at peak time, seeing the same annoying people every day... But there are lots of downsides with being an academic, among which there's the fact that work might follow you everywhere. The 9to5 person has an office, and work stays in the office: but for the academic, especially one who, like me, works always from home, there's the risk of work creeping into every aspect (and room) of your life.



Luckily, my self-defence mechanisms are quite good: I am excellent at fending off work commitments that try to encroach upon my non-work sphere. However, with the recent addition of Little Girl to the family, and the ensuing childcare duties (that seem to fall mainly upon me), the opposite has also happened: non-work encroaching upon the work sphere. I find it harder and harder to find the time to actually work. "Work", for me, is mainly writing (academic articles) - so the problem is that I basically don't write enough.

So a recurrent pledge in my life is to become more productive: less time at work, but more work done. The key strategy to get to this goal is to get up (very) early in the morning and do my writing then. I've never been a morning person -  genetically, culturally, and existentially, I find pleasure in waking up into a lit-up world. I have always found it very welcoming. Things have changed though, and two children have brought havoc to my semi-structured sleeping patterns. Having researched a lot about the virtues of rising early ,I got persuaded that there is something good in stepping out of bed while everyone else is still asleep. We're talking 5am, to be precise. In an earlier, unencumbered phase of my life, I would go to bed at 5am, covered in sweat, bruises,  and occasionally women's saliva. Now I still have women's saliva on me when I go to bed, but it's Little Girl's drool.

Anyway, waking up early is great. You make that coffee in the kitchen *just for you*, you sit down and meditate, you write your personal journal, you go for a run in a world that seems to be there *just for you*, you read a book in perfect silence. I have been using the early hours of the day for writing purposes - it definitely feels good. There are no distractions, no crap has arrived from the external world yet to claim your attention, family is asleep: no one is expecting anything from you. The brain is more focused, and you have this accompanying feeling of being a grown-up. A serious, responsible person.

But I fail to make it an habit. Most mornings, I lie in bed at 5.05am, debating to myself: "Listen to this silence.. It's priceless. Don't waste it. Soon they'll be up and coming at you. It's going to be a long day. Stay in bed." And I usually manage to persuade myself to stay in bed.


Paraphrasing Achille Campanile, a 19th century Italian writer: "I completely agree that a man must rise up very early in the morning, rather than lie in bed till late. But I have discovered a strange fact about myself: I agree with this principle between 12pm and 12am only."