> "In many pre-industrial societies, daily life followed the rhythm of sunrise and sunset, which naturally shaped circadian rhythms."<p>Having an office job that allows for flexible hours, I start my working day at different times during the year. Setting the alarm to the latest hour that I can start to work it never wakes me up, but it is there just in case.<p>Overall, I feel that I am less stressed, sleep better and have more energy that if I force myself a schedule to wake up. What I have is a schedule to go to sleep, the rest I leave to nature.<p>> Mary Smith, a much-loved knocker upper in East London<p>Great picture.
> Setting the alarm to the latest hour that I can start to work it never wakes me up<p>Funny enough, I have the same strategy but the exact opposite experience -- it _almost always_ wakes me up, even when it's set for 11 am. I don't disagree with you though, I just think it's funny how different human experience is. And there are benefits too, it's easy for me to stay up late, and a lot of my best work comes naturally at 1 am. But basically nothing good happens before noon.
I think the important part was that they also had a schedule for sleep. That’s the real key to a natural wake up.<p>I’ve struggled with the decision to go to sleep my whole life. If left to my own devices I’d effectively have a 28-30 hour day and my sleep/wake times would continuously shift.
I'm pretty much the same. Nothing done before noon. I show up to the office on time just for the sake of it, I then get my work done at night. My manager is okay with it but it is not sustainable, I feel like it takes unnecessary time out of my day. But it is genuinely hard.
Can you negotiate with your manager about start time? I know it will depend on the exact team, but n my old team I would walk into the office at like 10:30 every day, and then stay in the office till about 7-8 every evening. I wasn't secretive about it, but nobody was upset, it was obvious that I was staying later to get work done.
Flex work time is awesome. Other than flights I haven't set an alarm since before covid.<p>1.5 years of basically no irl social life and going to bed at 22 every day has really hammered home my rhythm. I still wake up around 06-07 every day.
I've had the great privilege of working remote for quite a while. Unless I have an early flight to catch, I don't set an alarm. I tend to wake up within 60 min. of sunrise regardless of the season and fall asleep somewhere around T-8 hrs.<p>I can't tell you how much I'd dread having to be violently aroused from my slumber on an ongoing basis.
One of the benefits of remote work is not waking up with an alarm clock. It's been so long I forgot how much that sucked. And the snooze button.
I think we might need another term for working both remote and with a flexible schedule. I'm working remote, have been at a few jobs, but while my location isn't an office, my schedule is fixed, the same as if I were going in.
Alarm clocks with needles have a huge error in minutes. I also suffered when I was a teenager.
Do you not have to be online at a certain time when remote?<p>I’ve been remote for 6 years now, and did it on and off for a while before that. I’m still woken up by an alarm clock, because I can’t get myself to go to bed at a reasonable time, but have to be online for meetings and stuff and 9am… I think many would prefer 8am, but that’s just a symptom of a broken meeting culture.
“Most Indians [= indigenous Americans] did not know how old they were. They measured time in days, moons, and winters, but they had no weeks, hours, or minutes. On the eve of an important event, when they were afraid they might oversleep in the morning—for example, when a war party discovered an enemy camp and wanted to make sure to wake up and attack it at first light—Indians would drink a lot of water before going to bed.” — Ian Frazier, <i>Great Plains</i> (1989), p. 48.
> but they had no weeks, hours, or minutes.<p>I don't think this is true.<p>We (Asian) Indians make a big deal out of beginning and doing important tasks at auspicious times. That wouldn't be possible without some means of measuring time of day even if its not perfect.<p>Edit: updated for clarity and leaving original comment as is.
I first learned this from Lisa Simpson.<p><a href="https://youtu.be/pmRtY_vvW1U" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/pmRtY_vvW1U</a>
I write historical fiction set in the medieval period and spent a ridiculous amount of time researching topics like this. The candle clock with a nail (comment 18 mentions it) is one of my favorites — you'd stick a nail at a specific height in the wax, and when it burned down to that point the nail would drop onto a metal plate and clang. Monks used these extensively because they had to wake for the canonical hours (Matins, Lauds, etc.) regardless of season.
Single greatest thing I did to fix my circadian rhythm was get a sunset/sunrise lighting alarm. I have some hue lights and a "Hatch" alarm clock that both do sunrise lighting and some light morning noise that gradually increases lighting early in the morning. Even when its dark outside, my body has accustomed to it so much that I didn't even notice day light savings at all. Best investment for myself and my daughter I've ever done.
I haven't used an alarm clock in my adult life. I don't remember using them when I was younger, but think that is just not remembering.<p>I'm not convinced everyone can just wake up, but I am increasingly convinced it is more possible than most people care to admit.
<a href="http://astronaut.io/" rel="nofollow">http://astronaut.io/</a>
I have my phone set as backup and because I am guilty of the +5 minutes<p>I always wake up between 5-30 minutes before it goes off, if I have something important the next day tho, I don't sleep at all because my brain won't let me :)
I think it happened because our subconscious mind has its own clock running and it remembers hours and hours of our time From years.
People went to bed when the sun went down because candles cost money. The light bulb changed everything.
I find that when I go camping, I get sleepy early around 9pm and I wake at 6 feeling more refreshed than I do at home. Fresh air and birds chirping. It's honestly a dream
Lighting was the killer app for electricity.
Outdoor lighting in particular, at first at least. A fun historical anecdote on this one most don't know is the saying that somebody "can’t hold a candle to [x]". It's a reference to the old profession of link-boys who were mostly poor kids who'd carry a torch at night for people to see their way about, in exchange for a penny or two.
Electricity costs money too? I don't know how the cost of power compared to the cost of a candle in the beginning of the 20th century though.
I’m going to get an electricity bill each month no matter what. I won’t notice a few bulbs being on for a couple extra hours each day.<p>I would notice having to go out and buy candles all the time, or needing to make them. A candle can be consumed over the course of a day or maybe even a few hours. A light bulb can last months or years.<p>If light bulbs burned out as fast as candles burn, I would be a fanatic about keeping the lights off and only use them when absolutely necessary.
You can make and light a long-burning torch from the materials found in most any lush yard, let alone the much greater areas of wilds available to people in the past.
I suspect you've never actually tried that.<p>A torch isn't just a bundle of sticks that provides light. It needs to be soaked in liquid fuel to work - like kerosene or wax - and it's a messy, smoky thing even then. It's completely unsuitable for use indoors, and it certainly isn't a cheaper alternative to candles.
Or perhaps you haven't. Many common resources are perfectly viable for making torches from including resin from a variety of common tree and plant types. If you want to get fancy you can even make your own pitch. It was the reason I added 'lush'. And why in the world would you want to be indoors? It'd be vastly more pleasant at e.g. your gazebo or wherever else, of course subject to climatic/weather extremes.<p>The concept of spending vast amounts of time indoors for both recreation and work is an <i>extremely</i> new thing. Not only post-electric but largely post-internet.
Roosters
Somewhat related I find it very funny how some people who identify as conservatives absolutely abhor dailight saving times as something which is "unnatural".<p>Well, there's nothing more natural than waking up earlier and resting later in the summer, while doing the contrary in the winter. Dailight Savings looks to me like at least an attempt of humans to try to follow the natural rythm of sunrise and sunset as "God intended us to do". Why are you against DST? Are you some sort of communist bureaucrat that want to impose us this government clock instead of respecting God's nature laws?
When I started ADHD medication, I started to be able to wake up on time without an alarm. All I need is a nearby source of the current time and somehow I can just wake up when I plan to.<p>I do still use alarms sometimes when I don't expect I'll be able to check the time and continue to fully waking up, but mostly I haven't needed them nearly as much as I used to.
um, candle with a nail stuck in the side ?<p><a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=candle+alarm+clock" rel="nofollow">https://www.google.com/search?q=candle+alarm+clock</a>
This story is strangely parallel to the software developer. Just as the knocker uppers stared at their own end... so do we. I wonder if they were in denial as well?