Sorry, but you'll never convince me you get "sharper" at the end of the day than at the beginning.
I go to sleep as soon as I believe I'm able so I can wake up again. Sleep is a necessary evil, but it is necessary. So let's get it over with.
In the morning, I'm 100% the coder I am at 9pm.
So the nuance is what's your tipping point where you are performing worse due to fatigue.
When I was a kid, my parents made me go to bed around 9pm. I used to get up every half hour saying "mom, dad, I can't sleep". They figured out quickly enough that sending me to bed early was a waste of time since I would spend 3 hours sitting or laying in my bed waiting, fully awake, feeling like going playing outside.
Does sunshine get brighter or darker as the day goes on? Could it get brighter, then darker?
Do you get closer to work during the day, or farther? You're at home at the end of the day- does this mean you never go towards your workplace?
Work through this with me.
I'm "sharper" at night because that is the only time I can expect to have no distractions. That means other people not being around; typically because they're sleeping. A [ job ] without distraction will always be more productive than [ job ] with constant distractions.
Not to mention I have a 'waking period' of about 4 hours. I'm not mentally checked in until several hours after I wake up. Caffeine helps with this but unlike a large portion of society, I don't rely on caffeine to wake me up in the mornings.
What I find extremely bizarre is that many of these so-called "morning people" need a cup of coffee each morning or they're as braindead as I am. It's almost like they aren't morning people at all and are relying on a stimulant to make them more alert and "mentally checked in".
I am the most productive about 2 hours before sleep, at midnight.