Yesterday, my first day of the spring quarter, went great. I met all of my exercise and writing goals with time to spare. I even had a little extra energy left to organize a drawer in my daughter’s dresser that’s been bugging me for awhile. It was a good day. But I did make one mistake when I said to my husband, “It’s been weeks since the baby has been up in the middle of the night.”

And what do you think happened last night?

The baby was up crying for over an hour. Not one of the good hours, mind you. It was 11:20-12:30, which is right in the sweet spot for getting high-quality sleep and being able to return to sleep after waking.

So, at around 12:15 last night, I had to make a choice. Should I stick to my plan of getting up at 5:20 to write this blog post? Or set my alarm for later and hope I’d find the time to write later in the day?

It was a classic energy vs. time tradeoff. Was it more important to have the time designated for an activity that’s important to me, or the energy to make the whole day go more smoothly?

A couple of years ago, I might have chosen time over energy. I love my schedule, and I love sticking to it. But after two kids, I know that while planning is vital, plans are disposable. I also know that I can’t get through a full day of teaching young kids, parenting my two at home, doing household chores, and writing, with less than a hundred percent of my energy. I re-learned that lesson the hard way when I was sick for a few weeks in March.

So I re-set my alarm to give me an extra half hour. I felt guilty while I did it. I felt like I wasn’t being a “real” writer, because real writers get up at 5 AM and write every single day. 

(Or so I’ve been told. If that’s the definition of a real writer, then I don’t know any.)

It feels good to have come to a place where I know myself well enough to make this call. I was still startled by the alarm at 5:45 AM, which means I didn’t finish my last sleep cycle, and my mid-day energy drop may be greater. But I’m still glad I took the extra sleep and nurtured my energy instead of hoarding my time. The writer may work primarily from her brain, but without her body, that brain is useless.

So day 2 of Q2: Spring and day 6 of my blogging challenge didn’t start off as I’d planned. But even though that midnight hour with my daughter stole my sleep, at least I got a blog post idea out of it– and hey, how about that-– I found time to write it!