• My most productive time of the day to work is early in the morning. However if I have the choice to wake up early or sleep in, I will sleep in, so it's very rare that I'm up that early. If I am up that early, it's usually because of class or finishing an assignment, so I can't actually do the kind of work that would be great to do early in the morning.

• I am very optimistic in setting my alarm. When I live by myself, I often just snooze through when I said I was going to wake up. When I live with a roommate I will wake up at the correct time, but I haven't ever got along with someone sleeping in the same room as me. So there's a tradeoff there.
• I can't sleep in very late (past noon or so) so staying up late is a good way to maximize the time I'm awake. When I get up early after staying up late, I get really excited, that I'm competing or really getting after it (I still feel pretty awful and tired). Given the choice between staying up really late and not, I'll choose to sleep more however.
• No matter how much sleep I get, I feel awful for the first thirty minutes I am awake. So it's best if there's something that I must do in the first thirty minutes.

I figure I could gain around 500 productive hours a year with an optimal sleeping scheme.

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