Going Uphill

The 5am Wake Up Experiment

A cup of coffee with a slightly out of focus bed in the background.
Portrait of myself (Edward)
Edward Danilyuk

I am not a morning person. I have considered myself a night owl since my teens. The idea of waking up before the sun rises is just absurd.

Morning people? That was reserved for those who wanted to punish themselves, or were on the bro hustle culture bandwagon.

Knowing this, why did I decide to try this experiment?

First, a little background

I currently work as a software engineer. I have been doing this for nine years. Typically, I would work late, until 1am or later and get up around 8am. I really enjoyed working at night. There were less distractions, less kids wanting my attention, and less meetings. I could get a lot of work done in a short amount of time.

This schedule worked great for me…until it didn’t.

I hit my early thirties and things changed

Suddenly, working at night wasn’t working anymore. I wanted to write and work on personal projects before bed but by the time I was done cleaning up the house and putting the kids to bed I was exhausted. This lead me to not doing the work I wanted to do which in turn would leave me feeling disappointed. The next night I would go through this same cycle. Week after week.

Keep doing the same thing or make a change?

Instead of continuing this frustrating and frankly depressing cycle, I decided to experiment with waking up at 5am and shifting my work to the morning.

This would mean that after my daytime work block ended at 6pm, I was done with work for the day. I could put the kids to sleep, then do whatever I wanted and go to sleep guilt free. This sounded like a pretty good reason to try this experiment.

How its going

I set a lot of alarms and I have been getting up at 5am. There are a few days where I oversleep, but overall I have been sticking to my schedule. Yes, it sucks.

Here is what my typical morning looks like:

  • 5am: wake up, brush teeth, drink water
  • 5:30 AM: workout, shower, make a protein shake
  • 7:00 AM: Start my workday

At some point our 3yo will wake up. I take him downstairs so he doesn’t wake up the rest of the house and he does a few Marco Polo lessons and snacks while I continue to get some work done.

  • 8:00 AM: My wife gets up around this time with our 1yo, and it’s time to take a break for the morning.

Thats it folks!

That’s my morning! No cold plunges, hours of meditation, or “visualization” exercises.

I am enjoying this new schedule. It is hard, but I am getting my writing done now. I wrote this in the morning after my workout!

P.S. Despite what the productivity gurus may tell you - 5am is not a magic bullet for all of your success. It’s one step in the overall plan of getting shit done.

I like this tweet by Trey Wheeler which summarizes my thoughts nicely.