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Comment by hasenj | Hacker News Reader

I've always had a hard time sleeping/waking on time. What you might call a "night owl".

I'm starting to notice that on weekdays I actually perform better with 6 hours of sleep rather than 8 or 9. Then on the weekend I would "sleep in" to make up for the lost sleep time.

For some reason, if I sleep for 8 or 9 hours, I wake up feeling like I don't want to do anything. I don't feel sluggish or anything. I just feel "satisfied". Like there's nothing to be done. I can just "be". I can't bring myself to focus on any specific task. Nothing feels urgent.

When I sleep 6 hours, somehow I can focus more.

This is combined with not consuming caffeine. If I drink coffee after I have slept only for 6 hours, it makes me tired and sluggish.

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Are you me?

I feel like many engineers are better and more productive late at night. Mornings sap the energy from my body. I often need a solid three hours just to "boot up", but at night I absolutely kill it with productivity.

I wish the world revolved more around our schedule.

I have this with weekdays & weekends. I'm insanely productive on weekends, Monday and Tuesdays, not so much.

It's like my entire schedule is shifted by two days.

I find I work better at night as well. I have a hunch this is due to the lack of distractions. One doesn't get many useless shoulder taps, phone calls, or IMs at 3 in the morning.

> I'm starting to notice that on weekdays I actually perform better with 6 hours of sleep rather than 8 or 9.

Same here but in a different way than you describe. I become scatterbrained and jump from task to task never able to focus on anything because my brain is just firing too fast for its own good.

Of course dip too far below 6 hours and I once more can't focus. This time because my brain runs away from any perceived obstacle and opens the nearest distraction (like HN)

That might not be related to amount of sleep but rather how many hours there are until your next guaranteed interruption (lunch).

Try a morning standup meeting!

In all seriousness though I don't find the interruption that bothersome.

Ha! I kind of feel the same way. In my case it seems like a full night's sleep makes my senses sharper and the environmental annoyances at work become that much more irritating and hard to ignore. Maybe I also have come to associate the feeling of a full night's sleep with weekends and vacations.

Can you wake up naturally on both cases? I find that my day is much better if I wake up without an alarm, but I can't do that most days due to traffic, gym, etc.

I noticed the very same. I often feel fresh just the moment I open my eyes without an alarm. Tho it's also true that in some occasions I wake up and realize you need 30-90min more so and I try to dig back in :) All this is altered by any alcohol consumption the night before - proportionally to the amount.

On days I wake up naturally, early in the morning, I am 100x more productive than a typical day. The problem is keeping that consistent seems to be really difficult for me, possibly depending on a bunch of factors, like stress levels, exercise, sleep quality. It might even depend on the season, with cooler months somehow being better for me.

One of the ways I manage my ADHD is by tiring myself out physically before I work. That way I don't have to depend on a tired brain and stress before I can focus. I find the reduction in physical energy is just as effective, but of course that may just be me.

I'm not sure about more productive and focused, but I do find I slip into exactly that pattern.

Coffee probably isn't helping me either.

This is an amazing observation. I have not noticed this, but I exhibit the same pattern of behavior.

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