Initial plan was to wake up ealier by 30min deltas every other day but well it's not a sleep study: I had a daily job to attend so I was a bit limited there. Also I was on the search for a permanent solution, so I preferred testing a wake up time at least 2 weeks before seeing if it fits or not.
From then on, I knew already that 6.30am was hell and we had 2 weeks where I needed to be early at work so I shifted my wake to 6am. I noticed it was quite a lot easier to get out of bed; mind you not a celebration or anything but noticeably easier.
For the second part, it was more a shot in the dark as I basically took the difference between a good wake up time (8.30am) and a bad one (6.30am) which led me to believe that the next good slot was around 4.30am. Which was verified again over 3 weeks. I tried intermediary times and they all proved to be worse than those "sweet spots".
One thing though I tried to smooth whole wake-up process so I prepare now everything the day before (clothes, mug, laptop, ...), I have this light box in the bathroom that's like a little sun, I bought a "real" coffee machine, ... and I go to bed as soon as I yawn a bit too much (~10pm as said earlier).
Hope it helps!
somehow even if i fall asleep at 11pm, the 6am slot does not move (force of the habit?) - so maybe something to check?
If you wake in the middle of a cycle, you’ll feel groggy. Waking at the end of a cycle is easy, and allows you to feel alert even if you haven't had enough sleep yet to feel refreshed.
I guess it could be that waking at the peak of the ultradian rhythm is better than waking at the nadir, even if the nadir is 45-60 minutes later. Especially if the resulting sleep pressure leads to becoming tired earlier, as seems to have happened to you.
What method did you use to find your optimal waking time? Any sort of sleep measuring tool (phone app, fitbit) or just trial and error? If trial and error, any particular method that worked well?