---
title: "5:00am is the enemy"
date: 2022-10-07T12:00:00-07:00
url: https://blog.lmorchard.com/2022/10/07/5am-is-the-enemy/
author: Les Orchard
tags: [metablogging, writing, books, sleep, productivity]
---

# 5:00am is the enemy

Apropos of my attempt this year to [build a new creative writing habit](https://blog.lmorchard.com/2022/04/20/building-a-new-creative-writing-habit/), I saw [this small exchange on twitter](https://twitter.com/hughcards/status/1578404925788364801) on how to squeeze in writing time:

!["5:00am is your friend"](Feem8XoaEAE2u-7.png)

I've been meaning to post more things on my blog, perpetually, for 20 years. So, here's some of what [I posted on Twitter](https://twitter.com/lmorchard/status/1578414788623097856) in a mini-rant:

5:00am is how I wrote a handful of tech books, about 15 years ago. That basically quenched any further desire I had to write books - or even 300 words per day at all. Been questing around for an alternate approach ever since.

Though never bestsellers, I think the books did help buy me some measure of dayjob career propulsion as a software engineer. Didn't do me favors as a writer, though.

I *think* what I've learned is that hustle culture doesn't work for me. Or, if it once did, it does no longer. The mechanism has overheated and permanently fused. I'm already operating at near to over capacity in everything I'm doing. I don't have spare willpower or executive function to arbitrarily carve out more. Something else has to give or burn.

And, given [how important the notion of sleep hygiene has become for me](https://blog.lmorchard.com/2004/12/03/if-you-snore-get-tested-for-sleep-apnea-now/), "just don't sleep" strikes me as one of the worst possible lifehacks.

Anyway, this brought to you by the visceral soul shudders induced in me by the phrase "5:00am is your friend"