Comment by almost_usual

I go to bed at 8-9pm and get up at 4:30.

My fiance and I don't have kids. I'm sure this is the biggest factor to allow me to live by this schedule.

Having a short commute helps a lot obviously, but I still was able to keep this schedule back when I had an hour commute. Back then, if we had even one errand to run after work, it was straight to bed when we got home, so we usually tried to keep errands to the weekend. Even if we had no errands, a lot of days we only had time to cook dinner and watch an episode of the Office.

Now we have a 10min commute, so after work we have time for an errand or two, then go to the gym, then we can even watch movie or something before bed.

I cook easy meals, things that don't take long and don't require more than a pot or a skillet. I don't mean microwave garbage or instant ramen either. I mean things like soups and beer-steamed sausage.

However, this usually leads me to eating the same few meals over and over. If I ever want more variety, I meal-prep on the weekend.

My fiance and I don't usually clean on weekdays. We probably live like slobs by some people's standards, but we're never more than 20min from a clean house.

As for social life... All of our friends live too far away to see them on weekdays anyway.

I get up at 4:30am, commute to work and start around 5:30am, work until ~2:00pm, go for cross-fit/karate training around 6pm with wife, come back eat diner, go to bed around 9pm. I have 2 kids which are now 15/17 so it's easier to plan things. Age is late 40s.

WFH on Friday so I can go train in the morning and have my Friday evening and week-end with wife and kids.

Some of this was harder to plan when kids were younger. Wife would 'dump' them in daycare/school and I would pick them up in afternoon, homework, diner, etc. between 3pm-6pm. Any errands, I'd stop coming back from work or do on weekends.

I used to do furniture delivery as a truck driver as my student job while in university and the waking up early stuck after being used to it. Obviously, you need to have an employer which is fine with this work schedule.

The secret isn't the "4:30" part, it's the "do the thing" part. You can almost certainly squeeze something into 30 minutes of your day, somewhere convenient. So pick the convenient time and do that.

I don't live somewhere with sidewalks, so running is out for me. (Plus I don't like it much.) I do a basic circuit with pushups, lunges, and pull-ups, first thing in the morning, while the coffee is still brewing. It's my "I don't feel like fussing with a proper routine" bare minimum, but it's enough. Then I have breakfast, shower, and get on with the day. It takes no actual equipment (anything that supports your weight is fine for pullups) and costs nothing but time.

>So, what's the secret?

There isn't one. Its a trade-off. I get up between 4:15 and 4:45 (depending on the day) to exercise. I go to bed between 9 and 10 pm (usually 9:30.) I exercise with a group of people, and that ends up being most of my socializing time. 5 - 9 is family time.

I incorporate errands into my schedule. When I walk home from work from the train station I will stop by the local grocery store to pick up anything that is needed.

My employer is fine with me working from the train to and from work. I get there early and I leave early.

Weekends are arranged to buy other items in bulk.

My bed time routine is probably 15 minutes of reading a book before I fall asleep.

Committing in advance.

I pay for a gym membership with group classes. You have to book your attendance in advance. I make a habit of doing it the night before. In the morning I get up at five to go to the class I booked the night before. If I wait until the morning, it doesn’t happen. Other people I know are in running groups where they plan to meet their friends at an early hour.

It’s not so much a secret as a set of tradeoffs. A few years back, I learned that I had made the wrong tradeoffs - I was unbelievably obese and got to spend a week in a cardiac ward because of a whole lot of bad choices.

My kid was only 16 months old at the time. So when I got out of the hospital, I got to deal with the guilt at almost leaving her fatherless through terrible decision making.

So now I make better decisions. Running early works best for me (and I collect an immense amount of data so I can prove that). I’ll usually go to bed at around 10:30, sleep until 4:30, do my exercise for the day, have breakfast and get to work. I snack on proteins, have a very small meal for lunch and then take a nap. I’ll usually walk in the afternoon or maybe play some pickup tennis in a nearby park, rinse and repeat. I have a very full life, enjoy every moment of it and can work with the schedule I have.

It’s just a tradeoff. Angiograms suck and I don’t recommend them. Having limited unstructured time isn’t great, but it beats the hell out of a poke in the heart. :)

The 4:30 part helps me with performance in a roundabout way. One of my weirdo obese habits was this messed up relationship with productivity, where I had all these great resources to learn how to get fit but wouldn’t do it because it took time away from work. Dropping pounds and adding in running boosted my productivity a lot - I could do much more in fewer hours. With morning runs, I get a nice little productivity hit that makes exercise even more habit forming because I get the reward mechanisms from the exercise, those boost productivity which gives me another set of reward mechanisms later on in the day when I’m starting to wind down. I’m really just an addict chasing different highs.

A different time might be better for you - the key is to do something, be consistent, turn it into a habit and slowly improve.

I get up at 5am to work out. I don’t need 8 hours of sleep - 6.5 works fine for me. Sleep by 10:30pm. It’s not that hard. Most people here are going to try to figure out a reason why they can’t do it because it‘s easier than admitting they’re just too lazy and/or lack the will.

Looking through this thread is hilarious. The top comment is a guy claiming that the author must be rich because he plays tennis (what kind of bumpkin says this?) and that’s the true secret to his health. It’s all just excuses. Those who want it go and get it.

This is important. I can't speak for GP obviously, but for many people who get up unusually early there is no doubt that it is about having "extra time", but it only means they sleep less than they should or that they simply shifted their sleep (ie no extra time).

There is no free lunch and compromising sleep quality and amount is really a fool proof way into physical and mental issues.

I used this as an excuse for a long time, but it turns out it was just a way to prioritize television viewership in the evening over exercise in the morning. Your circumstances may differ of course.

Nope. I get 8-7.5hrs every night. I’m asleep within 15 minutes, zero screen time.

Yes, also exercising with lack of sleep has the opposite effect, especially if you are doing heavy lifting or anything like that.