Ok, the hell with it, I am starting Everyman in 2 1/2 days, with an 11pm-2am core sleep (and 7am – 12pm -5pm naps, in case you are just coming here). Other than an irritating cough that makes it difficult to sleep my health is back 80%. I am pulling an all-nighter now anyway, working, powered by coffee, and I worked hard all day yesterday (powered at first by tea and then by sheer enjoyment of my work – I did a great job on the e-learning contract). At the present rate I will have finished my work by 8am today and then I’ll go to the gym and spend the rest of the day resting and playing. The desire to play during the day is what got me started on this crazy idea in the first place. I anticipate I’ll be quite sleep-deprived for the first two weeks (but maybe not, no-one can tell). So the plan for the next two weeks is to do all or most of my work during the first night shift (2-7am) and I will still have 2 day shifts and one evening shift to play. The truth of it is that on my current coffee schedule I can only work 5 hours or so anyway (unless I take caffeine) – I really have nothing to lose.
Note that by comparison on my "normal" schedule I have 2 day shifts and an evening shift. Both my day shifts are taken up working (in front of the computer when the sun is shining, yuck), and half of the third shift is occupied with life-support tasks (cooking, eating, cleaning – not unpleasurable but not exactly thrilling either). Add it up and I only have a few hours to myself on weekdays. By the time weekends roll around I am too exhausted and toxic to do anything much, before you know it the weekend is over and the whole damn cycle starts up again. It’s not a life.
If polyphasic works, I will work 2 shifts (which is a lot more than I work now, and without the caffeine that is killing me). I will have one daytime and one evening shift left, take out 2 hours of life-support tasks and I’ve still tripled my spare time on weekdays (do the math). And since I won’t enter the weekend toxic I will have a full 4 shifts on each weekend day. So in actual fact it’s more like I am at least quadrupling my discretionary time. That is pretty WOW.
You may find this pretty obsessive – perhaps it is but this is my life getting frittered away in dreary busy-ness. This needs to end. There is nothing more important.
