I try not to fight it much without having a valid reason - like a tight deadline. And in those instances, coffee will generally put me to sleep within an hour. And if I fight it for longer than, say, a couple weeks, I end up sleep deprived. The only time coffee "works" for me is when I'm not stressed, which is to say not when I "need" it.
That wasn't the case in my twenties, though. I could work on something for 36 hours, sleep for 4-6 and do it all over again for a couple months at a time before I'd start losing my way. I was also drinking a LOT more alcohol back then.
Melatonin has helped me to keep a bit of a balance though (not that you need one, it depends on your life :)), living half in this real world and half in mine has helped me order life a bit and i'm no longer constantly cycling around my sleeping. It's well recommended for circadium disorders.
But I'm lucky to have a job I can start at 11am, even if that's tricky. But with the use of melatonin and loads of other things I don't have to fight myself as much as I used to and can generally get to sleep before 2am(sorry not 1am as above, that would be a miracle). Acceptance definitely helps :).
Haha, I used to do the same with working! I remember once after about 2 weeks straight working 24-40 hour stints I turned to my friend and said "I think i've forgotten how to sleep.". I realised then that sleep takes concentration and if I was overtired I don't have the concentration to get to sleep.
On the other side of the same coin, I've learned not to bother trying if I'm not ready to sleep, and so when I do go to bed, it's because it's time. My wife gets annoyed with my ability to fall asleep about around the moment my head hits the pillow, as it takes her at least 30 minutes.
As for the job schedule, I recently rejoined the freelance world and I'm elated by the idea of going back to MY normal schedule. The company I was working with gave me plenty of [relative] slack because I was productive, but there were still a few too many meetings that kept me on a schedule that didn't really jive. I think that very schedule inadvertently contributed a great deal to my reasons for leaving.
Probably helps too that I have beige walls and a small desk lamp beside me. Using the desk lamp instead of the full room light / a completely black room helps limit eyestrain.
1: blinking is a big deal, and I tend not to blink much when tired but focused. Eye drops help.
2: spent a few years working with a company where video is everything.
Its quite normal. If you work at home and have no family or other obligations that keeps you in sync, you tend to sleep in a bit longer than strictly necessary simply because you can. Naturally you go to bed later also. Now your day has become more than 24 hours. If you are allowed to do this every day, you get very out of sync with the rest of the world and occasionally line up with it again.
For some staying up late is a choice, it may be environmentally caused but for those with a disorder it's not. It's a problem from birth. I'm speaking more about delayed sleep phase syndrome though, I dont know much about non-24.
It will occasionally adjust itself to something more "normal" but never for more than a week before it starts rolling again.
I work remotely and my wife is a bartender, so it's never much of a problem for me. When I interact with clients I usually end up with a multi-sleep schedule where I'll sleep for 3-4 hour stretches. As long as I don't force it in any direction it doesn't really have an adverse affect besides the occasional weirdness of not being sure if it's 6am or 6pm at certain times of the year because the sunlight is about the same.
It normalizes for me when camping as well. I went on a 3 week road trip this summer with just under half our nights in a tent and pretty much fell asleep by midnight at the latest every night.