I sleep from 9pm to 4am, +/- 30 minutes. I was never a morning person but having a kid changed that out of necessity. From 4pm until 9pm, my life is absolutely frantic: commute and/or daycare pickup, feed, cleanup, bathe, and by 9 I'm exhausted. My partner stays up to work after my son and i go to bed. I tried that approach but was totally unproductive. Now I get up 2 or 3 hours before anyone else and in that time I get more done than I used to do in a normal 8 hour workday.
My team at work mostly get in and stay late which is sometimes difficult because I'm basically out of commission after 3pm. But I like to think I compensate by getting so much done in the early hours. I got dinged on a performance review for ignoring slack messages sent at 6pm. It was hard to swallow because I basically work 11 hours a day. I have to refuse meeting requests after 3pm, and if I get pushback, I offer to reschedule for 5am. Oh that's too early for you? So I have to accept your schedule? Fine, cut me a check for $80 because that's what my daycare charges for late pickups. Oops, this got a little off topic. But as you can see, work/life balance should really be renamed work/sleep balance since I'm working basically every waking minute that I'm possibly able to.
My team at work mostly get in and stay late which is sometimes difficult because I'm basically out of commission after 3pm. But I like to think I compensate by getting so much done in the early hours. I got dinged on a performance review for ignoring slack messages sent at 6pm. It was hard to swallow because I basically work 11 hours a day. I have to refuse meeting requests after 3pm, and if I get pushback, I offer to reschedule for 5am. Oh that's too early for you? So I have to accept your schedule? Fine, cut me a check for $80 because that's what my daycare charges for late pickups. Oops, this got a little off topic. But as you can see, work/life balance should really be renamed work/sleep balance since I'm working basically every waking minute that I'm possibly able to.