The Prize for an All-Green Week

Last night I stayed up late writing music.

Last night I stayed up late writing music.

I’m paying for it now, in the sense that I’ve got to play the entire day tired, a bit headachy, a little slower and sludgier at everything I’m going to try to do.

I didn’t need to stay up past my bedtime, fork with my circadian rhythm, and trade a day of focus for an hour of it. I have time in my week already blocked off for composing. It wasn’t like I had to borrow minutes from my own rest and recovery.

But I opened my laptop right before I was going to start winding down (always a bad idea) because I wanted to listen to my oh-so-beautiful composition one more time.

And then I decided to start adding more notes to it.

These notes weren’t even notes that I had to add right that minute, in case you’re wondering whether this was a Muse Striking scenario. As with most of my creative work, I’ve already outlined the entire piece. I know where it’s going and what it needs to do next, and all I have to do is write it down — and I don’t have to do any of that writing in lieu of sleeping.

But I made my choice, and this morning when I filled in my Daily Spreadsheet I had to mark “Energy Level” as “Tired.”