Great so I’m an early riser, but my partner isn’t…
photo credit: JF Sebastian
The strapline here at pantsonfaster.com is “productivity in the real world”. That’s because some of the productivity advice I see around the place is fine in theory, but not so easy in practice.
In this post I’m going to take a simple example. I’ve read plenty of posts about why any self-respecting achiever should get up early to make the most of the day. See for example Steve Pavlina, Zen Habits and Dave Cheong.
Inspired by all this I now get up at 6.30am, seven days a week. Not quite the 5am heroics I see elsewhere, but I’m an eight hours a night guy so any earlier and I’ll be going to bed mid-afternoon!
However, my partner does not wish to be woken up at 6.30am, especially not at the weekends. So what’s the productive type to do?
Partly it depends how light a sleeper your partner is. If your alarm won’t wake them there’s no problem, but most people are woken up by alarms, that’s the point.
Here are my tips for escaping the bedroom without disturbing a bedmate:
- place the alarm is right next to you: this means you can switch it off as soon as it goes off. If you’re quick enough it won’t wake your partner. As you get used to getting up at the same time everyday you’ll start to wake up just before the alarm anyway, so you can be poised to switch it off.
- escape the room silently: there’s no point killing your alarm instantly if you’re then going to crash about in the dark looking for socks. I suggest you leave everything you need in a pile by the bed or just outside the bedroom door. Grab your stuff and get dressed in another room. Whatever you do, don’t put the light on!
- use a silent alarm: if your partner is woken up even by the brief alarm, try an alarm only you will notice. In the past I’ve used my mobile phone alarm, set to vibrate only, under my pillow. I will admit that the first few times it went off it took me a few seconds to figure out what was going on, but you soon adapt.
- establish expectations: make sure they know you’re going to be getting up early. If they then stir briefly when you get up, their sleepy brain will remind them it’s just you getting up and hopefully they’ll drift off again straight away.
- make it worth their while: if you do wake them up, beg forgiveness with a small gift. Tea or coffee in bed should do the trick.
Once you’re out of the room you’re set, unless you proceed to crash about the house and so you undo all your good work!
Anybody else had to deal with this problem? How did you overcome it?
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