I don’t have much invested in Google. The moment a better search engine comes along, I will switch. I have a lot invested in Facebook. Many hours have gone into adding content and curating my profile. The moment there is a new platform with more bells and whistles, I will perhaps not even notice.

Investment does not have to be time. It can be emotional (be a part of their special moments and memories), monetary (I own Wii and cannot buy X-box games), effort (I am comfortable with wordpress, I do not want to use Joomla) and so on.

Content is permanent, banners are fleeting.

Content is found, banners are displayed.

Content is a friend or a consultant, a banner is a salesman or a hustler.

I must admit I am a bit tired of it all. Why should I get up early in the first place? What have I got to prove?
So here are 10 points about why you should stay up late and still not feel bad when you come across another article by the self-help gurus who preach getting up early in the morning!

Why you should stay up LATE!

1.    There is nothing ‘natural’ about getting up early in the morning. It perhaps made sense a few hundred years ago when sunlight was the only source of light and you could only get your work done when the sun was shining – so getting up early was required to maximize working time. This argument does not hold anymore – at least in places that have electricity. (If you are reading this, your house/office has electricity).
2.    It is a myth that you ‘save time’ by getting up early. Well, each day has 24 hours and if you sleep for 6 hours, you have 18 hours to do everything else, irrespective of when you sleep and when you get up.
3.    If you get up early, you’ll need to sleep early. If you sleep early, you miss out on all the exciting stuff that happens late at night! Most people start winding down around 8pm and are off to bed soon after. Most people have 1-2 hours of leisure time in the evening before they sleep. But this amount of time is not really enough to plan anything meaningful. On the other hand if you know that after finishing dinner at 9pm, you still have another 3-4 hours, it just opens up so many possibilities. You can read a book, watch a movie, work or simply talk.
4.    Toiling away late into the night while the rest of the world sleeps is such a beautiful feeling! It is so still and quiet.
5.    To just look out of your window or balcony at 3 am is such a moving sight. The whole city is bathed in a warm yellow glow, everyone is peacefully asleep, even your noisy neighbour. I would not miss the feeling for anything.
6.    Some of the meals that I have enjoyed the most have been the late night snacks that I had while I was studying at IIMA. We used to get very hungry when we studied till late and either we used to cook up something around 3 in the morning or walk down to the NR (night retreat – a late night in-campus restaurant). If you haven’t had a meal at 3 am, you’ve been missing something.
7.    There are few things as surreal as a late night jog through an otherwise crowded place (during the day). It is a wonderful feeling to go for a jog around 1 am and just notice the stillness around you. It is amazingly peaceful and you get great ideas as well!
8.    I am at my productive best when I work late. There are no distractions, no noise, no school bus to miss, no newspaper headlines to read. Knowing that there is nothing else between now and sleep time except what I am working on right now is a nice feeling.
9.    When you sleep late, you will usually get up late and that can be so effective because you will do the boring/usual/essential stuff very quickly indeed. It is so much fun to get ready in a hurry. You find out just how quickly and efficiently you can shave among other things.
10.    It is an amazing end to the day if you have been working late and have been able to do some good work. The feeling of satisfaction and contentment that you get as you lie down and close your eyes is not matched by anything else.

So, stop fretting about what time to get up in the morning. Getting up early seems to work for a lot of people, but it is not for everyone. The only way to find out the hours when you are most productive is to experiment. So try getting up early for a few days and try moving to a different pattern every few days. Stick to the one that feels most natural and productive.

Read another point of view here - Addicted to the snooze button?

Once upon a time, many years ago, in prehistoric times, at a time when there were no cities, no buildings and perhaps even no villages, there was a hunter. He had had a successful day and was walking through a forest back to his tribe. He had slung a deer across his shoulder with some homemade rope. He was walking fast because it was close to evening. He came across a branch of tree lying on the ground. He casually picked it up and held it in his other hand for support. To his surprise, the branch was not as sturdy as some of the other sticks he had used for walking. It was a bit flexible. Whenever he put his weight on the stick, it bent a little. The hunter kept walking but did not throw away the branch. Then, suddenly he stopped. Something occurred to him. On an impulse, he threw down the deer, freed the rope, picked up the branch and looked at his rope again. He examined them for a moment and tied the two ends of the branch with the rope, thus inventing the bow. The hunter saw the connection between two seemingly unconnected things. He saw something which no one else had seen. He saw something which he himself had never seen before.

A branch of a tree is a branch of a tree. It has certain uses and that is that. A piece of rope is a piece of rope. It has certain uses and that is that. The preconceived notions about the branch of a tree and the piece of rope prevent us from seeing more into these objects and find some new connection. When we are free from our preconceptions, we have fresh perception and new possibilities open up in our thinking. That is what creativity is about – having fresh perceptions.

That fellow saw something which nobody else had seen. There are so many invisible connections around us and connections between hitherto unrelated things can be the source of new ideas!

Creativity is about making connections – as we saw in the example of the hunter. The ability to see a connection between seemingly unrelated things is a big advantage.

In everyday life we use metaphors to make connections between unrelated things. Metaphors are used to explain complex situations in an easy manner. Many metaphors are parts of our everyday usage Рroot of problem, heart of city. Most of us now recognize our heart as a ‘pump’ but that is a metaphor as well. Mind map is a metaphor! Metaphors help to communicate complex ideas in a short and sweet manner. A computer is a metaphor for our brain. It is so popular that we talk of processing power and our memory being short term or long term even though the way our brain works is very different from how the PC does. It helps to take ideas from one context and apply them to another context.

Metaphors provide us with a new way of looking at things. It is like watching a Manchester United Vs Liverpool match on TV with only ONE CAMERA feed and then suddenly we have more camera feeds as well! The two experiences are incomparable. Using metaphors provides us with new insights, leading to more ideas and better decisions.

Try and provide 5 different answers to each one of the following statements/questions.

And I am really looking forward to hearing what you have to say on this one:

Smoking a cigarette is like talking to your mother in law because…