Good Morning, Sleepyhead

wood.tang — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 15:42:47 -0500

The always useful Ask Chicagoist addresses a recent obsession of mine, making yourself get out of bed in the morning. I used to be a morning person. When I faced a 30-mile reverse commute to get work by 8:00 a.m., I had to. And for a few months last year, I was possessed by a spirit that made me get out of bed at 5 every day so I could squeeze in some work before the toys started flying.

But now I'm the classic snoozer, punching the bar on the alarm clock every eight minutes until the previous night's best-laid plans are a half hour late. I like to say it's the bed's fault. It's too damn comfortable, but I probably don't do myself any favors by staying up reading or watching TV past midnight.

Thales from Chicagoist recommends a number of tricks for getting your ass out of bed, including setting the coffee pot timer to start brewing around your wake up time, putting your alarm clock out of snooze button reach, and a nifty-looking gadget called the Sleeptracker that tracks your sleep patterns and wakes you up during the lightest phase of your sleep cycle. When I was more diligent, some things that worked for me were avoiding caffeine after 3 p.m. or so, no glowing screens--TV or computer--near bedtime, and putting my slippers by the bed. For some reason, if I could sit up immediately and shove my toes in the slippers, it made me want to stand up and get going.

What are some your your best tricks for getting out of bed in the morning? Your own rooster? A reveille bugler? Drinking a gallon of water at night so you have to get up or else you'll wet the bed?

”Good Morning, Sleepyhead” was written by Matt Wood for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on February 23, 2008. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Napstyles of the Rich & Famous

Merlin — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 10:26:08 -0400

My pal, Penney, once told me that when she was a kid, and her family went on vacation, they would "drop the spoon" every afternoon. I knew this was a cousin of the disco nap, but I never knew it was a purported invention of Salvador Dalí, (according to QuestionSwap):

Lie down or sit in comfy seat holding a spoon in your fingertips. you should be holding it in a way that - when you loose consciousness (sleep) you drop it... the Clatter (put a big plate on the floor under your hand) will wake you.... and you get woken JUST as you enter the best "dreamy" bit of your sleep.

Related (though pretty insane, if you're asking me) is the notorious "Thomas Edison Nap," which, repeated through the day, is intended to stand in lieu of an actual solid night's sleep (and which seems to have partly inspired some of the polyphasic sleep ~~nutjobs~~ proponents). Edison is said to have naturally needed less sleep in a day, and seldom slept very much in a given stretch, claiming that excessive sleep was a sign of laziness -- and yet:

[His] co-workers noted that Edison actually slept far more than he would like to admit. Clearly, he would carry sleeping little as a badge of honor. He catnapped a lot, and his nap cots have been preserved to this day in Edison museums.

But -- being a layabout and lardbrick of some considerable renown -- Your Author finds himself much more attracted to the other end of the spectrum, where we find the "Winston Churchill Nap." This is something I first learned about from mathowie, and which the great man describes himself:

You must sleep some time between lunch and dinner, and no half-way measures. Take off your clothes and get into bed. That’s what I always do. Don’t think you will be doing less work because you sleep during the day. That’s a foolish notion held by people who have no imagination. You will be able to accomplish more.

Yeah. That's more my speed. Winston knew how to nap.

”Napstyles of the Rich & Famous” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on September 26, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"