About a year or so ago a friend sent me a Time Magazine spread comparing morning people to night owls. And though I write this at 2am, it seems I am neither.

I have come to the conclusion that my most productive hours are between 10 and 2. That’s between 10am and 2pm and between 10pm and 2am. Those are my sweet spots. You see it’s not that I am this anti-corporate hate-all-things-9-to-5 Four Hour Work Week reader. Ok, I kind of am. But it’s the way I’m wired… and could be the way you’re wired too.

I just don’t believe we were meant to be enclosed in our cubicles 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. Luckily I work with a team that spans 4 countries, almost covers all 24-hours of the day between just 10 people, has part-timers, a full-time 4 day work week-er, and a fearless leader that has zero reservations about me working from home/remotely/in my pajamas until a client meeting.

My proposal is an exercise in flexibility. The split-day shift. 4 to 6 hours in the office followed by 4 to 6 hours at home. Think of the benefits.

• increased productivity – I know you’re all falling asleep after lunch just like me. If you’re working 12 hour days there’s a good chance 3 to 4 of them are wasted on trying to get moving. How about stopping during the day so you can tackle a problem with a clear head? How about just cutting the fluff time out and working only when you’re focused?
• less traffic – Everyones productive sweet spots vary. That means in a split-day shift not everyone is rushing to work at exactly the same times.
• healthier families – Imagine dropping your kids off at school and picking them up after your first shift and just hanging out for the afternoon. You can’t do that with your 14 hour solid work day, but you could accomplish it with a 7/7 split.

So I’m an idealist and as much as I would love to see the above things, I realize this won’t work for everyone. Not everyone works behind a computer where they can just pick up their work and go anywhere. It wouldn’t make sense for the financial markets to open and close and open and close. But here’s to hoping I will always have a job and that some day you’ll get a job where a split-day shift works…

I’m blogging live and direct from my temporary apartment. Temporary because my stuff barely fits here (wait, doesn’t really fit here) and there’s no way my wife and I will both fit in here when we get hitched. My friend Andy and his parents were gracious enough to let me rent their guest apartment until February or so when my fiancee and I will find a new home to call our own. Andy’s street number? 322.

Three-Two-Two. 322 was my pager code in high school. This led many to believe my birthday was on March 22nd. So 4 days before my birthday I’d get a plethora of well wishes. “Thanks in advance,” I’d say to their dismay. One of my close friends had the code 311. Her birthday actually is March 11th, but no weirdos, this was not some sort of awkward psychotic twisted crush to be coupled with Miss 311. (11 coupled = 22?!?!?, I still don’t get it).

Pictured here are Roces Chapter 322s. My codesake. WTF? Now you’re thinking one of two things. A) You were one of those lame inline skaters. LOL! or B) Shiet, mang. You named your code after 322s. Everyone knows the top of the line were the Majestic 12s. Your code should have been 12.

Well, A) I hate you, and B) I never ever got top of the line growing up. It seemed to be some sort of weird life lesson that my parents were teaching. In fact, it was one of the things my Dad always said to me. “Remember son, even when you think you’re the best there will always be someone better than you.” So when I got hockey skates I got Bauer H3′s instead of the then top-of-the-line H5′s. Civic Si. NO WAI. You get an EX. Never the worst. But never the best.

So here I am. 322 in 322. Coincidence? Yeah. But one worth reminiscing about.

pistevo.com has slowly become, like so many other blogs, abandonware. Its slow and painful decline was due in large part to a slow and painful decline in my will to live. The day in and day out suffering of being at a job that was slowly sucking out my soul was too much to have any desire to do anything after work other than bash my head against a wall and find a way to get the hell out. I was dying.

So after much talk of quitting my job… I quit.

This may have been the single most life giving decision I have made. Life no longer sucks. I no longer feel like stabbing myself when I arrive at work. I don’t watch the clock tick by hoping it would move faster.

So now that I got my soul back… I will write again.

I will write random things and weighty things. But mostly I will write to compete with thesesocksdontmatch.com. Because blogging is a competitive sport. And I intend to win this fight. Bring it sock lady. Pistevo lives again.