Daylight Saving Time is set to turn our clocks ahead Sunday at 2 AM (aka 3 AM). This means that everyone will have to make do with one hour less sleep until they adjust to the new time schedule. This will cause widespread sleep deprivation, especially on Monday morning. Get ready for it!

Daylight Saving Time was suggested by Benjamin Franklin in a tongue-in-cheek essay he wrote for the Journal of Paris in 1784. He suggested that the French could save candles if they just got up one hour earlier in the morning and turned into bed by the same measure each night. Apparently those in charge of "time” did not get the joke and we ended up with DST. It was not used in the United States until 1918, when President Woodrow Wilson signed it into law during WWI. It was so unpopular that it was repealed by Congress seven months later. In 1942, as part of an attempt to save energy during WWII, FDR instituted year-round Daylight Saving Time. This lasted three years until September 1945 when the war was over. That was nothing compared to what Great Britain did. They instituted a double saving time– setting their clocks ahead two hours in the summer – and one hour ahead in the winter during the war.

Our current iteration of DST came about in 1966 when the Uniform Time Act was signed into law. At that time, it was six months long. Since then, it has been extended up to 10 months (1974) and as few as seven months (1987-2006). We currently observe about eight months of DST.

Why have there been so many changes to DST over the years? Keep in mind that since 1966, DST in the USA has been controlled federally by Congress and the President of the United States. Where politicians are involved, expect politics to dictate the rules! It has been argued that it saves electricity. When Indiana went on DST in 2006, electrical usage increased by 1% over the previous year. It has been argued that it helps farmers, but most agrarians and their lobbyists have historically opposed DST. (Do cows produce milk an hour earlier after the second Sunday in March? Do chickens roost an hour later after the second Sunday in November?) Although two Idaho congressmen justified their support of the 2007 move to eight months of DST because, they reasoned, it would allow fast food restaurants to be open during more daylight hours in which they would serve more French fries. (Idaho is a major potato producer.) So for the sake of the French fry lobby, we are all required to be to work one hour earlier next week. I may boycott fast-food next week in protest!

Why am I so crabby about DST? I just don’t know anyone who is in love with the spring forward idea when it happens. It seems to disrupt everyone’s life. So why are we doing it? Business productivity? I am all for more business production, but how much can employees produce when they are sleepy? I think it is a bad idea that perpetuated itself by federal mandate and we all just comply.

Here is my solution: figure out if you want to get up on standard time or fast time and then let’s just leave the time alone – like forever. Let’s take a vote and then make it the same time all year round. You won’t have to reset your clocks and everyone will be happy come Monday morning. And happy people are productive people.