Scheduling

It's weird how certain concepts simply stay out of your field of 'conceivability', so to speak, until they suddenly pop in and you feel silly for not considering them earlier.

Setting up a schedule for myself has been such a concept. I have read about the concept and its advantages several times before, but for some reason I have just shrugged and never considered it seriously. And I don't really know why - that's the paradox of gestalt shifts - once you have shifted, you're unable to see the reasoning behind your old view (unless you have written it down, or something like that).

I believe that perhaps part of the reason I have been reluctant to set up a schedule is my slightly irregular sleeping habits. I have thought it more important to be rested than to wake up at a certain time. And I still do - working ten hours at sixty percent is worse than working eight at ninety. And my brain is really sensitive to this. It's like sleeping badly puts some kind of insulator between the synapses so they're unable to fire properly.

However, there are a couple of reasons I presently have for willing to try out a schedule nonetheless:

If it turns out that I'm unable to function properly because I am determined to wake up at a certain time, I could always wait with setting up the schedule until morning the same day. That way, I know how much time I have for disposal.

However, I presently have another theory: That my irregular sleep is in part due to my not having any obligations to get up in the morning. Currently, I have a research position, which means I can pretty much come and go as I want. Could this have a negative effect? Perhaps if I approach it more like I would a regular job, my brain somehow would get more 'incentive' to sleep properly during the night? You see, my problem isn't that I cannot fall asleep in the evening - I usually do pretty quickly. Rather, the problem is that my sleep is light and not 'restful' enough. Also, I usually wake up before time, and if I get up at that time, I will be tired.

In other words, this is going to be an experiment. I will schedule the following day the night before, including a time at which I wake up and a time at which I go to bed, and everything in between. Naturally, it will be impossible to follow such a schedule to the point - unexpected events do occur, of course, and there are some tasks which are hard to approximate in terms of time needed for completion. However, those things I believe will come with experience. The first hurdle is actually following through with it.