> Waking up early does have a practical advantage: your free time is before you go to work, so then you have energy to do important things.

This doesn't make any sense to me. I have zero energy or drive in the morning, it's a struggle to do anything. My brain turns on at about 11am - I can be active before that, but serious creative work or figuring out something that requires mental effort is going to be much less effective than if I waited until later in the day.

It doesn't even really matter when I wake up. I can wake up at 6am and be a zombie for 5 hours, or wake up at 10:30am, shower, and be ready to go for the day. Sufficient application of caffeine helps a bit if I need to be fully on before that, but the quantity necessary to do so is not sustainable.

Doesn't work tire you down?

I'm not able to do anything productive after leaving my office.

Sure, sometimes if it's a particularly hard day. But except for really crushingly busy days, I'm always in a better place to get stuff done after work than in the morning, even if I got plenty of sleep.

Edit: This might be different, of course, if I worked in a physically demanding profession. I work as a software engineer though, so that's not the case.

I need to rest an hour after work. Maybe one and half. Afterwards, energy is back. At least if I'm overall well rested. But even tired, a spark of energy in the late afternoon is garantied.

My energy peaks towards the end of the day, not right after I wake up. I'm a night owl so that I have energy to do important things during my free time.