I’ve been working from home since March 2020. I never set an alarm for work anymore, but I get up earlier than I used to. I would say that I sleep better not caring when I get up. But I have to force myself to stay in bed beyond about 5am. I could sleep in until 7 easy, because my office is in my house.
Anyone else working from home experience this?
uhh… this is really more of a MPSIMS if a Mod would like to change it.
My sleep schedule is unchanged. But I’m more leisurely about my morning routine, since my commute is 45 seconds instead of 45 minutes.
I’ve been working from home for the past decade or so; It’s typically the opposite for me.
I used to work in one of our satellite buildings, about three miles of here or 20 minutes by bus. Then I got transferred to unit in HQ – adding a 45 minute shuttle ride from the satellite building. In the satellite office, I was on a fixed schedule – 8:30 - 5 – due to customer service being part of my duties. They also allowed working from home two days a week, also 8:30 -5. Changing to HQ allowed me to work a flexible schedule – I’m able to start work any time between 5:30 & 11 am, as long as put in my 8 hours plus a half hour for lunch.
So I could get home at a reasonable time, I started getting to work by 9:30; when I first started working from home five days a week, I used what had been my commuting time to stay in bed. My current schedule is similar to what it was for the satellite office; I’m typically at my workstation between 8:30 & 9 so my lunch break coincides with feeding the kitties. I’m still not getting up as early as I had been unless I have to go to HQ or, for whatever reason, I’m up anyway and can’t get back to sleep.
Moved from FQ to MPSIMS.
Before COVID I used to wake up at 6:30 AM so that I could go to the gym for a workout before I continued on to the office. I also went to bed around 10 to 11 PM so that I could get enough sleep before repeating this cycle the next morning.
Once the gym closed down and I began working from home, there was no longer a need to wake up so early, so ever since then I set my alarm clock for 8 AM, giving me enough buffer space to have breakfast and get freshened up before my first meeting of the day.
The beginning of the pandemic also coincided with me reading the SDMB more, so I gradually slept later and later, stabilizing around midnight, sometimes reaching 1 or 2 AM during especially bad nights of going down Internet rabbit holes. To be honest, if it wasn’t for my wife nagging me, I could easily wind up not going to bed until 4 AM. This is something I’m working on correcting for 2022.
I’ve been working from home literally one day and I already feel like it’s changed slightly!
I usually wake up at 6 to start work at 8. By the time I get home around 4:30, I’m absolutely dead on my feet and ready to go to bed. I do my best to stay up until about 9 so that I can let the dog out before bed and she doesn’t have to pee in the middle of the night.
Today, I woke up at 7:30 (well, in a panic at 7:15 or so, but my alarm was set for 7:30) to start work at 8. I have Covid and there’s no video chat or anything involved here, so the morning routine was cut down to just basic hygiene and taking care of the dog before crawling back into bed with my computer and getting to work.
The combination, I guess, of that extra hour-and-a-half of sleep with the fact that I spent the day sort of resting my body (I’m disabled- so I can get around to some degree, but oh my god is it exhausting, especially since my workplace is an old building built into a steep hill and is the polar opposite of handicap accessible) means that it’s now almost 9:30 and I feel like I could stay up for another hour if I wanted to. Or… maybe a half-hour. Anyway, I’m more awake than I usually am at this hour.
Somewhat. I don’t have to commute any more, so I get up an hour later. Stay up somewhat later but not by a lot.
Disastrously. I’m not a morning person. The lack of office routine has removed the pressure to conform to sensible hours. Not good at all.
My waking hours haven’t changed (alarm at 6.15, bed about 10pm), but I do now have a leisurely cup of coffee in bed before I get up. I also take the dog for a walk every other day, whereas before I paid a dog walker to do that for me Monday-Friday, and the other days I go for a run. None of this happened when I had to get to an office.
That was me until I decided to time my lunch break to coincide with feeding the kitties.
I could have worked 5:30 - 2 today and not use any leave to take the elderly cat to the vet but I’m almost never up that early.
I no longer use an alarm clock at all since I’m always up well before 8am. Unless I have meetings, my lunch hour isn’t for eating and moves all over the place for errands like grocery shopping. Sometimes I start working at 4 or 5am if I’m up. As long as it doesn’t conflict with zoom meetings, I can do my eight hours however I want during my waking hours, which wasn’t really an option when I had a cube at a workplace.
Yep. I used to routinely get up an hour earlier for a shower and the 1/2 hour drive in to work. Now, with my typical start to work at 8, I routinely wake up about 7:30, get some coffee and leisurely make my way up to my home office upstairs. I’ve set my alarm clock maybe twice since mid-March 2020.
It varies though; sometimes I just wake up early, like 5:30 or 6 am, and know I won’t fall back asleep. Those days I might start work early, get a lot done early, and knock off early to make an elaborate mid-week meal (I still need to be on-call in case something comes up before my ‘official’ end of work time).
Other days, if I don’t have any early meetings or pressing work, I might even sleep in past my ‘official’ 8 am start time. Those are rare, but very nice when I feel the need for a little extra time in dreamland.
And if an emergency pops up later, after my normal stopping time, no problem; I wake my computer from sleep mode and get it done. So my computer’s waking hours have changed too 
Overall the flexibility benefits both me and my company I think.
I’ve been working from home since before Covid. When I went into the office, I was up at 6:30, fed horses and dogs, left the house at 7:15 to arrive at work by 8:00. I’d leave at 5:00 and be home around 6:00. Feed horses and dogs and have my dinner around 6:45. Bed around 10:30. Now I’m up at 7:15, feed horses and dogs, start work around 7:30. Feed horses and dogs their 2nd meal during the work day. End work at 4:30. Bed around 11:30.
StG
Yes, definitely – mostly as a result of not having a one-hour commute to work (though I was working from home one or two days a week, even before COVID). I haven’t been in the office since early March 2020, and I don’t know when, or if, I’ll be back in the office.
Prior to March of '20, if I was going to be working at the office, I’d have to wake up around 6:50am, in order to give myself enough time to get ready, and get to the train station. Now, unless I have an early meeting, I’m waking up around 8 or 8:15. I can get up, boot up my computer, check my email, get a shower, all before 9.
I am usually a night owl anyway, and I’m still going to bed around the same time as before – between midnight and 1am. The difference is that I’m now getting 7-8 hours of sleep, as opposed to 6-7.
OP here. It works out well for me.
We have had some changes. I’m a programmer/analyst. Any upgrades must happen on certain days after hours which is cool. We have to give 2 days notice which is not so cool. No one is one these systems off hours, so the 2 day notice can be a real tripping point.
Anyway, I have a maintenance window tonight at 6-9pm local time. I tried to sleep ‘in’, but still got up at 5:30am.
I wish I could take a nap during the day, but I’ve never been able to.
I used to get up 0600 to be at work approx 0700 (40 min commute). Now I get up at 0555 to be at work at 0600. I try to go to bed at about the same time, around 2200-2230, but I don’t sweat it as much since I know I can grab a nap if need be. The biggest benefit of losing the commute is I typically work 9 hrs vs 8 - so I can take every other Friday off.
My wakeup time has definitely changed.
For several months last summer, I was on a project that had very rigid hours - 7:30 to 4:30 daily (it was a phone support job). We had to be logged on at 7:30. I got up at 7:25, went to the bathroom, and went to my desk.
Now that I’m on a more normal project (I’m in IT, doing database work) I usually don’t get up until at least 8:30, sometimes later. If I had to go to an office I’d need to be up by 6:30 or 7, to be dressed and ready for the commute.
Not sure I’m getting any MORE sleep overall, though - I’ve gotten in the bad habit of staying up way too late. I think my natural sleep schedule would be something like 4 AM to noon, judging from times in my life when I’ve had no other obligations.
We are all different. My schedule is turning out to be about 9pm to 4am. My Wife is the same. I have another hour though tonight before I talk to tech support for a license manager upgrade. I’ll be talking to Udaysinh in India. Oh, I will be very awake for that, but am ready to call it a day.
We used to get out of the house before 7:00, to beat the traffic. Be in the office at approximately 7:45, work until traffic dies down, approximately 6 pm, with breaks for coffee and lunch.
For the first 16 months, I had a daily check-in meeting at 8:30, so I would be at my computer at 8:00, but wouldn’t get into my work until after the check-in meeting. Plus I had to do the grocery shopping and make lunch.
After my boss got fired, my responsibilities changed, and now I have more contact with people in earlier time zones, so now I often start working at 7:30.
For a long time we were getting up at the same time, but going to bed later, as we didn’t do well in differentiating work and non-work time. We’ve gotten better, plus we started going for walks 2-3 times during the work week. This really helped improve my sleep quality. Staying home all day is not healthy for me, especially if it is a few days in a row.
The other point is the weather. When we were in the office, we just dealt with it, if there was a problem, or complained about having to work. Now, if the weather’s nice, we make sure that we get outside.
I think we are more disciplined that we were before, as we know better that a regular schedule is better for us.
That’s interesting. While I work my 8 hour days, I find that not having a regular schedule works better. I think It has to do with living kinda remotely (my Wife calls it the illusion of seclusion). If I need to run into town during the day and take a two hour lunch, I just do.
I used to hate when the alarm went off at 5:15am. Now I don’t set an alarm and get up earlier. My Wife and I are clearly not night owls.