More notes to self: Sleep

All right, my daily life is clearly in need of revision.

I am very very happy with the framework of my days. I like my field, and I love my department, where, contrary to the usual grad-school stereotype, everyone really seems happy to be there. And they're letting me study Arabic! Even though it's not math at all! I have good friends with all sorts of interests, a strong and happy relationship with Boyfriend, and a world of interesting thoughts to run after on the internet.

However, I am not using those days especially well. Running after thoughts on the internet is taking up WAY too much of my time. I am staying up WAY too late at night (as the time of this post can attest...). For too much of my day, I'm too tired to do homework or research or really anything but blog-surfing.

School's been in session for a couple of weeks now, and I've been planning all this time to come up with the One True Life Plan that will send me flying through the semester, scattering homework right and left (preferably ahead of schedule), scrubbing and decluttering my apartment bit by bit until its default state is "clean and restful" instead of "cluttered with tripping hazards," and of course being available for all manner of Fun Stuff with my friends too.

Strangely enough, I haven't yet had time or energy to sit down and even really begin writing out this plan.

So instead, I'm going to try going at things FlyLady style -- change one or a few things at a time (even though ohmygoodness I can't possibly fix this without fixing all these other things!), and work up from there. It's working for the lime scale in my shower; will it work for my schedule too?

My schoolwork habits are probably most in need of revision, but I don't think anything's going to get better until I figure out how to have more energy. Getting back to regular light exercise will probably help with this, but in the last week I've been too sleepy to seriously consider getting off the couch. So, first things first, I'm going to fix up my sleep schedule.

At the beginning of the school year, I really liked having the flexibility to stay up as late as I wanted, without the pressure of having to get up far too early to drive to my summer job. Too much draconian structure, of course, is bad for anyone; but I personally don't do too well without a little structure to hang things on.

So, as an experiment, I'm going to try getting up at 6:30 every single morning (or at last 6 mornings each week). No snoozes, no excuses, but naps are allowed later in the day. I'm also going to set a "Go to Bed" alarm for 9 PM -- it usually takes me up to an hour from the time I think about going to bed to the time I'm in bed, and I like to have some time to read, and I get draggy if I'm not getting around 8 hours of sleep each night, which will require me to be snoring away by 10:30 whenever possible. (I assume that when I have kids a Biological Miracle will occur to get rid of this 8-hour requirement. Otherwise, we're all doomed...)

So, yeah. If I commit to this experiment in front of the whole internet, will it last at least a week or two? (I don't expect it to last longer, since it's only a first draft and will need to be modified once I find out which parts of it are least realistic...)

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