A Science(?) experiment and one questionable blackberry–mocha–banana smoothie ☕
🧪 Experiment Log: Night owl vs. Dada bird mode
Timestamp: 1:28 AM
Environment: Quiet house. Fan humming. AC breathing.
Fuel (on standby): One questionable blackberry–mocha–banana smoothie.
🧠 Observation
I’m a night owl.
I’m also a dad.
These two facts don’t naturally agree, so… an adjustment is required.
I do my best work late at night, when the world goes silent and the only sounds left are mechanical and predictable. There’s a clarity there I really like. But that clarity comes at a cost.
Even though I wake up around 2–3 PM and still spend time with my wife and kid, I’m usually meeting them halfway through their day. They’re already one nap in. I’m just shaking off sleep. Present—but slightly out of sync.
And I feel that gap.
🔁 Prior Attempts
I’ve tried reshuffling sleep before.
Even went down the polyphasic route.
Result: ❌ Not restful enough.
Now that our son is fully in toddler mode, sleep interruptions are part of the deal. Random wake-ups. Playtime invasions. The kind of chaos that makes night sleep the only sleep that really counts.
To be clear: sleep itself isn’t the problem.
The problem is where work goes if it’s not at night.
🧩 Hypothesis: Polyphasic Work
Maybe the solution isn’t fragmenting sleep—but fragmenting work.
Our son sleeps ~12 hours or more. That leaves windows. Real ones.
Although, it is very tempting to nap with him.
Draft Schedule (on paper):
- 🕘 9 PM – 1 AM → Deep work while the house settles (4 hrs)
- 🌅 Morning (9 AM - 12 PM) → 2 hrs after breakfast, before lunch prep
- 🕐 2 PM – 4 PM → Work during nap time (2 hrs)
- 🚶 Post-4 PM → Family time + afternoon walks
Total: ~8 hours, distributed, but anchored to family rhythms.
It looks doable. Which is usually where experiments begin—and sometimes end.
So let's consider the...
🧪 Next Steps
This needs a proper trial run.
To give it a fair chance, I’ll start next week, after the weekend reset. Right now, I’m clearly running on midnight fuel and optimism.
Logging this here for my own benefit, and maybe for you too if you happen to be experimenting on the same thing.
Cheers to all work-from-home dads out there!