As I start typing this Austin Real Estate blog article at about 6:15PM on a Tuesday, a crazy reality befalls me. It’s almost my bedtime. In less than 2 hours, maybe 3 at most. I have to get to bed around 9PM Sundays through Thursdays because of a new lifestyle commitment I’ve made. And it’s messing up my longstanding habit of splitting my “productivity” time into daily and late-night chunks.
For one month now I’ve been waking up at 5AM M-F, cooking and eating some eggs, out the door by 5:15AM. Getting to the gym by 5:30 for a 6AM-7AM fitness bootcamp workout. I have to arrive by 5:30AM because the classes fill up by about 5:40AM, and I don’t want to miss a class, and I like getting my same spot every time. I get back home around 7:15AM, about the exact time I use to wake up normally, before the workouts. At first I thought, “wow, I’ve captured 2 hours that would have been wasted sleeping each day”.
Not quite.
My old schedule only required 5 or 6 hours sleep at night. For many years, I’ve had very productive “work” time between 10PM and 2AM. I can go to sleep at 2AM and get up at 7AM with no trouble. Been doing it all my adult life. But getting up at 5AM is different. I just can’t go to sleep at Midnight and get up at 5AM. And then busting it in a 1 hour workout class. The math seems simple, but the reality doesn’t work. It just requires more rest than before.
And as the Austin real estate market seems to suddenly be coming to life, Sylvia and I have a bulging pipeline of upcoming listings and buyer prospects, and now I’m wondering how I’m going to get my work done without the peace and quiet of those late night, no interuption hours.