Mornings v. Afternoons

I am not now, nor have I ever been, a morning person. I don�t like to get up early for any reason.

I much prefer to stay up late and sleep in.

During my many university years my entire lifestyle was conducive to this. I would get up at maybe 10am, go to class, then head out to the pub or just home to watch TV until 1 or 2am and then start all over again. If I could manage it I�d try and squeeze in an afternoon nap as well! Occasionally the stupid-class-only-ever-offered-at-8am would interfere with this perfect lifestyle, but not too often.

For several years now work has interfered with it at least 5 days a week. But to a certain extent I have adapted my anti-morning position to the work day as well. I am generally a slow-starter in the office each morning. I need a good half-hour or more weeding trough my emails, drinking my first diet coke, and scanning through my favourite web sites in order to actually wake up and be capable of (a) speaking in coherent sentences or (b) doing any actual work.

While there are generally exceptions to this, particularly when some crisis lands on my desk or in my inbox first thing, usually I�m not working at my optimum until at least 10am. 10am to 6pm has been my best working time. Again unless there�s some crisis, my brain is usually dead by between 6 and 7, and I head home or out, or whatever. Over the last year or so, partly to the make the most of the times my brain is switched on and mainly to ensure that I can get out of the office by 6ish, I haven�t really been taking a lunch break. Unless I�ve had something specific to do mainly I�ve just bought a sandwich from one of the many places in the same block as my office and eaten at my desk.

This doesn�t mean I�ve worked through lunch, usually I�m surfing the web or writing an entry (today being a good example), but it means I never really get my brain out of work gear and can pick up the work again straight after lunch. It�s generally worked pretty well and made me more productive, which means I don�t have to stay too late.

But the last few weeks have been a different story. I�ve been out to lunch a lot more, both to eat and to do my Christmas shopping. (Side note, the crowds weren�t too bad over the last few weeks, but yesterday they were officially nuts, so I�m glad I only had one last thing to get). The lunching has been born of Kimberlance being up and around again and coming into town to socialise � though these are usually just one hour grab a sandwich lunches � and more dangerously, Nathan being seconded to an office just down the street from mine for a few months. We have been averaging lunch once a week at a little place halfway between our offices, and the number of beers we drink at lunch is going up by one each time.

The thing is that even without the beers, I�ve really been struggling in the afternoons. Over the last few weeks I�ve been hugely productive in the mornings and completely incapable of concentrating in the afternoons. I don�t know if it�s the lunches or just the end of year exhaustedness (hmm, can you tell by that sentence that it�s now afternoon?), but I�ve been turning into a morning person. And it�s wrong and I protest.

I haven�t said it out loud yet, but only because I�ve bitten my tongue to prevent it. You know, it, the morning person�s mantra. �I get so much work done early in the morning, it�s quiet and the phone doesn�t ring, and I�m more awake�. Or some close proximity. I won�t do it. It�s wrong. I�m going to keep on blaming end of year weariness. And when I�ve got the same problem in January I�ll blame what will probably be the actual cause: that I�ll have the office to myself and therefore no self-discipline.

As for this afternoon, I haven�t been out for lunch, so theoretically I should be ok, but as I�m really longing for one of those long lost (well, since Sunday anyway) afternoon naps, I think I�ll spend a large chunk of my afternoon making a list of the things I want to do over the Christmas break.

So far the list includes:

- breaking last year�s record of 8 movies in 12 days

- doing some work on this site, including a new design

- planning my next trip to LA (there�s nothing wrong with planning a visit to friends around the Barney�s Warehouse Sale, right?)

- sleeping in, staying up late, and afternoon naps