Shifting my routine 5 hours later

In February and March I built a routine where I woke up at 6:00 and went to bed 22:00, on average. This was great because I was able to work a lot. However, I was not able to go out.

So I wanted to completely switch around my rythm:

My routine was wake up, surf or run, work on the MIT, lunch, work some more, be social, and go to bed early. I used this ‘emoji sheet’ to track the success of my day, and frame my mind. This works very well for me for a good structure.

So now I want to switch it up. These are my new rules:

• Wake up 11:00. Always. Use a real alarm for this
• 10 minute morning exercise routine, 10 minute shower, 10 minute meditate. That’s right. I just need half an hour to sport, freshen up, and go to work. I live 20 seconds walking from my office Dojo Bali.
• Take half an hour to wake up, socialize, write down some recurrent thoughts, make bulletproof coffee, and set up my workstation in the coworking space
• Work from 12:00 until 17:00 on the MIT. With only coffee and 100% commitment to dive into complicated stuff. No distractions.
• 17:00–20:00: Surf or event & ‘lunch’. This splits up my day nicely.
• 20:00–00:00 Work again. Lots of coffee is allowed
• 00:00 Dine & Dance. Bake & Shake. Until 4:00 AM. Keep alcohol intake low, but go crazy nonetheless. If I don’t feel like being social, I can read or watch a movie. Don’t go to sleep before 3 AM.
• 4:00–11:00 = 7 hours of sleep. This is enough with such a strict routine. Sometimes I’ll still take 8 though, or sometimes I’ll take 6 if nightlife is awesome.

In short: In October-December 2017 it was EAT CODE KITE REPEAT. In January I don’t know what I was doing. February & March were WAKE, SURF, CODE, TALK. From April 2018 onwards, it will be WAKE, MAKE, DINE ‘n SHAKE.

The changes from my early routine (february+march) are pretty big!

• Eat window changes from 12:00–19:00 to 17:00–0:00
• Work window was 7:00–19:00. Now it’s 12:00–0:00
• Social window was 6:00–8:00, 17:00–22:00 and 12:00–13:00 (8 hours). Now it’s 11:00–12:00, 17:30–20:00, and 0:00–4:00 (7.5 hours)
• Sleep window was 22–23:00–6:00 (7–8 hours), now it’s 3–4:00–11:00 (7–8 hours)
• In the evening I always fill in the emoji-sheet in a mindful/meditative way. This takes about 20 minutes. This is my new emoji sheet.

All in all, this offers way more opportunity, especially on the social part. 6:00–8:00 or 17:00–22:00 isn’t very effective towards reaching my social goals. I think the new times will be more effective.

Challenges:

1) Find good place to work from 13:00 to 17:30. Evening is going to be easier. Options are at my guesthouse, at a cafe, or at dojo.

2) Sleep well from 4:00 to 11:00, dark, silent. Use the light-blocker + earplugs for that to make sure I don’t wake up from external stuff.

3) Don’t join long dinners and stuff in the 20:00–0:00 window. This needs to be a strict rule. I can join those people after that.

4) Alcohol is more present in the environments I’ll enter. Drink less. Replace alcohol with healthy sodas or just water.

5) Where do I eat dinner around midnight? There are a few Warungs open in Canggu, and you can order at bars/clubs too. No problem!

The Experiment

So I will try this in all of April (2018) It’s an MVE (Minimum Viable Experiment) and I will try to be objective about my happiness & productivity and see if it’s better than my morning routine or not. If not, I can always switch back, but I need to do this for at least a month because it takes some time to get used to.

I will get back with the results of this experiment later.

Many advantages of an evening routine in Asia

1. I can go out straight after work
2. When I fly home I don’t have to ajust to the timezone. I just wake up at the same time, but 11:00 am in Bali is 5:00 in the Netherlands in summer. This is great. When flying back I will have a morning routine there.
3. It’s super relaxed to work in the evening.

Update, 3th of April, 2018

Unfortunately, after 3 days I decided not to do this. Construction building starts 8AM every morning where I sleep and I experienced that it’s pretty hard to sleep through this, even with earbuds. It’s kind of necessary to sleep through this and I don’t wanna leave the place I’m staying now so I’ll keep not do it for now. However, I keep the blog post online as a reminder to myself and to maybe inspire others. I’d love to hear if anyone else ever had such a routine or did drastic routine shifts!