Some do. My father did. But it's just as bad, because then you're seen as leaving early. Or you don't leave early, and are working more hours, which has a cost.

My personal experience is that the notion "I will go in early today and leave at an appropriately early time," fails to work out as planned 90-95% of the time.

But I really can only blame myself for this.

Pre corona I was arriving at 7~ and leaving at 15. You can definitely do it.

Same. This was my schedule too, and maybe I got lucky in my workplace, but after socializing about it, nobody had any problem with the leaving earlier part.

Was easy too, 'can we meet at 4:30' 'Hmm, I come in pretty early, and like to get out the door by 3:30, can we do it earlier?' was a typical exchange.

Also, depending on your office arrangement your team-mates just know you get in early when they always see you in the office when they get in. But, ymmv, I am sure it varies from workplace to workplace.

It almost seems easier to pull off if you leave exceptionally early (3pm or earlier). E.g., if you leave at 4:15pm, that doesn't give any reminder that you started early.

You have the discipline to use the 24 hour nomenclature all the time. I applaud you! I had to read this twice, and loved it so much I had to comment

I find early better for few reasons, but primarily because not all work hours are the same. Waking up, working out, then immediately doing deep work before checking my phone, internet, or anything else almost feels like a super power. The best work hours of my day are actually spent working, and are almost never interrupted. Even if I do have to attend a late meeting or something, my brain is in the wind down mode and shouldn't need to wind back up. This means it's easier to fall asleep, and repeat the next day.

I used to do the stay up late thing, and while work did get done, it's nowhere close to what I get done in the morning.

I have tried this. Woke up at 1AM and went to bed at 7PM for one internship.

The challenge was that there are very rarely obligatory early morning events. There are often late day events and issues.

If I wake up early, I can't stay until 9PM without being miserable. But something requiring me until 9PM is far more likely than something at even 8AM.

Why not something less extreme? I start work at 6-7 and that usually buys me a couple of really productive hours before people start popping up. It also means you can still do things at 9PM without compromising your sleep patterns too much.

1AM is extreme. I wouldn't even call that waking up early, more like just staying up all night. When I was in high school I worked 10PM to 7AM, and that was terrible. But, I was able to, at a young age learn exactly how much sleep I need and what it took for me to sleep (pitch black darkness - eye mask).

Now, I consider 5-6AM early and that's when I typically wake up - haven't used an alarm in years.

Depends, I know have to work with people in India. Me getting up at 7am best matches their work hours.

I can stay up working as late as I'd like - when I'm done with my deep focus is entirely up to me. When I get into the office early the end of my deep focus is entirely out of my control. It ends when my coworkers decide to come in and start bothering me.

A lot (most?) people find staying up late easier than getting up early.

Also, if your waking hours are say 0800-2300 then you can easily work late and move your leisure time to the morning without changing your sleep schedule.

> Also, if your waking hours are say 0800-2300 then you can easily work late and move your leisure time to the morning without changing your sleep schedule.

Not necessarily. Early birds like me find it difficult to work in the evenings, despite being technically awake. I find it way easier to get up early than to stay up late, which can actually feel like torture sometimes.

As for the split, I've read it's more like 10% for each extreme with the majority in the middle, though I can't find a reference, and I suspect it's very hard to actually know.

Some do, although many deep workers circadian rhythms naturally skew later. There's plenty of research on this you can find.