I saw a link on hacker news to this article on how to sleep five hours a day[1]. Since following this advice, my life is really much better. Like Steve I set a fixed wake up time (5am) and go to sleep whenever I'm tired. I use a lamp that slowly turns on leading up to 5am and always get out of bed right at 5am and immediately make tea first thing. Then I use the computer or read in front of the 10,000 lux lamp. I probably don't do every single thing in the blog post, and I'm actually sleeping more like 6 hours a day, but still less than before.

I was never a morning person before either and I always had tremendous difficulty waking up. Part of the problem is that I knew as soon as I got up I had to start getting ready for work. By waking up long before I need to get ready, I actually have something to look forward to every day, some nice relaxing time reading, having breakfast, etc. This has been the most important factor in making it work and making it a truly positive change.

1: http://blog.ernestsemerda.com/2010/08/06/sleep-5-hours-night...