Insomnia

Despite the fact that you can be your own boss, being self-employed has many traps, especially if it involves working on a computer. The most common one is ending up working at late hours and even catching the sunrise, which can completely mess up the way you work as a human being. While it doesn't perform miracles, Insomnia can help you regulate your sleep pattern. It suggests the best times to go to sleep, based on when you wish to wakeup. Even if you intend to shut your eyes for an hour or so, you can plan your sleep and wake time in such a way that your brain won't hate you when you wake up.

Insomnia is distributed as a free and open source application. It is available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux operating systems and you can have it up and running in no time, because it doesn't need to be installed. The application doesn't have any special requirements and it uses an insignificant amount of resources.

There is not much to look at on the main user interface. All you have to do is specify a wakeup time and click a button. Based on your specified time, the application will calculate six optimal times when you should go to sleep. They all show up on the same user interface, the instance you hit the "Set wakeup time" button.

Besides calculating the best sleeping times, the application can also notify you when it's time to rest. If the clock reaches one of the calculated hours, a notification will show up in the lower right corner of the screen, along with options for dismissing the notifications or shutting down the computer. The best part is that Insomnia stays quiet in the system tray and you won't have to deal with it, except when calculating optimal sleeping times or dismissing its notification.

If you can't give up your chaotic sleeping habit, Insomnia will make you reach an agreement with your brain, even if you decide to sleep for two hours.