As an entrepreneur and productivity guru, I read information on how to wake up early all the time. There are countless tips, articles, and even entire blogs dedicated to the topic.

It seems like everyone’s striving for an earlier wakeup time. Getting up before 6am for 30 consecutive days is even one of my own personal goals.

I am nocturnal by nature, and while I’ve always been highly productive, waking up before the sun rises is always touted as bequeathing supernatural levels of energy and progress. On those days when my sleep cycle rotated in such a way that I was waking up on a “normal” schedule for a few days, it did seem like I was able to get more done during those daylight hours.

Now, for the past six months, I’ve given up my freelance entrepreneur lifestyle to take an on-site assignment for one of my main clients. (It ends this month.) This has involved my having to physically appear in an office between 7am and 9am Monday through Friday, and often at least being available by phone by those hours on weekends too.

Here’s the funny thing: despite waking up early each and every day, my productivity has plummeted.

Why Daylight Only Feels More Productive

Productivity as a whole is a hard thing to measure objectively – at least compared to our total potential for productivity during a given timeframe. Setting clear goals with measurable criteria helps, but there’s no definitive way to know that today’s eight 400-word articles, hour at the gym, and freshly baked ciabatta bread equaled 87.5% of our total possible output for the last 24 hours.

Instead, productivity is measured in general terms – how ahead or behind we are on various deadlines (total number, difficulty, and feasibility of said deadlines notwithstanding), or, even more generally, how productive we feel we were at the end of the day. Herein lies the myth that waking early is a conduit to greater personal growth.

Much as I wish everything were open 24/7, the fact of the matter is that many of our most tangible, measurable tasks need to be done during regular business hours. Grocery shopping, getting a money order, stopping by the DMV – checking off a chunk of errands on our Next Actions lists just feels so much more important than “wrote article #36 while sitting in my pajamas at the kitchen table,” even if said article is what paid for those groceries in the first place.

How Waking Up Early ROBS You of Your Productivity

Think back to that last time you were in a total state of flow, working on a project that truly excited you, not caring when (or whether) you were going to eat or sleep again, wondering where the last eight hours flew by.

These flow states cannot be triggered on and off with a switch (although there are ways of encouraging their frequency). When you’re in flow, you want—and need—to stay in flow for as long as possible.

In order to wake up early on a consistent basis, you need to go to bed early. Going to bed early prevents you from entering flow.

Just the idea of needing to wake up early the next morning can stop flow in its tracks. If I have a great idea for an e-book or a new product or service at 9pm, and I know I have to be up at 5am, I’m probably not even going to get started on fleshing out my idea because I know that I’ll be tired and miserable all the next day if I don’t get any sleep the night before.

This is how people get trapped in mediocrity for their entire lives. Do you want to be trapped in mediocrity?

I didn’t think so (or you wouldn’t be reading this!).

What You Get When You DON’T Wake Up Early

When you ignore conventional schedules and instead let your passion and energy levels be your guide:

• Whole new periods of time will open up to you
• You’ll be infinitely more well-rested but sleep five or six times a week instead of seven
• Reach your goals faster by maximizing the amount of time you spend in flow state
• Enjoy more time with friends and loved ones
• Ignore distractions like the postal carrier, sales calls, and the constant flow of email – check everything during off-peak hours when you can get more done in less time

Everyone Else Does NOT Wake Up Early

Hop on Twitter at 3am tonight. See who’s up talking. Know that YOU are missing out on those conversations, those ideas, and that energy while you are asleep.

You are missing out every single night.

Don’t Just Take My Word For It…

Spend this next week on your usual schedule of waking early. (This works best if you have two consecutive weeks of similar work ahead of you.) Take extra care to record your productivity as objectively as possible, including the total number of hours worked. (Check out Dave Seah’s Printable CEO series for an easy-to-use time tracker.)

It helps to briefly journal about your mood, too – were you crabby this morning because you were tired? In the rush to get up and get going, did you have to leave your hair unwashed? (Yuck!)

Now, for the second week, eliminate your alarm clock. Sleep when you’re sleepy, work when you’re not. Again, record your productivity and total hours slept, along with your mood.

When you compare your final results (and I’d love to hear about them, too!), remember: it’s about quantity and quality together. I would rather work two hours less a week than spend two hours a day “working” but zoned out and pissed off.

Why You Should Still Wake Up Early… Sometimes

I’ve kept “wake up before 6am for 30 consecutive days” as one of my 101 goals in 1,001 days, but now it’s there for a different reason.

Before, I wanted to join the great cult of productivity leaders who accomplish more before 6am than others do all day. Now, I want to do it only because it’s hard and it requires a high level of self-discipline.

In other words, I want to prove I can, and say I did it.

But I’ll have to wait until I can afford to let my productivity suffer.