Non-engineers too have hours in which they are most productive. Anecdotally, these hours are when they are not forced to sit comatosed in meetings or at their desks.
So, what period of day do you get the most work done?
I would wake up around 8AM, then fall asleep at 4PM, wake up again at 8PM and fall asleep again at 4AM. I was awake during all the necessary "business hours" to go to school, but I also had 8 uninterrupted hours in the middle of the night to study or read or whatever.
The best part was, whenever 4 came around I would get tired and fall asleep very rapidly, and snap awake fully energized at 8. Since I was never awake more than 8 hours at a stretch I was always refreshed right up to the time I would fall asleep. Meanwhile, unlike the hoax uberman or other sleep schedules, I was getting a full 8 hours of quality sleep per day, so I was never tired.
Edit: apologies, didn't read the "PM" after one. Of course 1300 is a prime of the same pattern, however unlucky it may be.
I usually wake up at around 4 pm, then spend the remainder of the day just hanging out, doing some chores and wasting time on the internet. In the evening I go out to dinner or a bar, and then hang out and play games with friends. I head home once the night is over - usually it is around midnight to 2 am. At this point I am usually bored of distraction, and entering the peak of my waking period. In the quiet solitude of the night, I find myself naturally gravitating into the Zone. On a good night, I can continue invincibly into the afternoon. At this point, I get any necessary email and administrative work out of the way, make sure my work is committed, and fall asleep.
If during a night session, I find myself falling out of the Zone, I simply just go to sleep early. However, this has the unfortunate side effect of shifting my schedule unpredictably for while.
Side note: do write code not like this, please.
I'll literally be preparing to go to bed when suddenly an idea pops in my head for a fix/improvement on a project I've been working on.
Four hours and a few git branches later, I kick back with a smug sense of accomplishment and...realize I have to be up in two hours.
Meanwhile, I can block out literally an entire saturday afternoon to work on projects, but usually I just can't seem to catch that same random spark that only seems to strike at like 1am on a Wednesday. I get things done, but am not nearly as razor focused. Maybe its because I planned it out, maybe I just work better late at night, who knows.
I want to capture that spark and place it in a bottle right next to my desk.
I get the same solitude as night time, but with a full, fresh head of energy and a clear mind. Instead of attacking my own projects with whats "left over" in the tank after a day, I get to put my most creative and best effort, first thing in the day, into my own stuff.
For those who work answer this: Do you get paid for your best and creative energy and effort every day, or more your attention to detail and reliability?
The answer to that question will help you decide where you put that best energy for best result.
This can make multitasking harder or easier. If tasks mesh well you can work on whichever you're better suited to at the time.
My ability to focus creatively or detailed seems to be directly tied to how well rested my mind is.
When I sleep and eat well it's far easier to concentrate and slip into flow.
It's Saturday and I woke up at 7, an hour before my alarm.. I've pretty much cut out all my caffeine, sugar and processed foods. The more I cut out our limit the more my energy soars. I have friends who found the same after citing back beer and certain meats. I'm the guy who lived to sleep in.
Either way I find my energy boosts are like CPU usage.
The less that is taxing my body by what I put in it and drain it with leaves more energy for all the tasks. It's borderline addictive to modify.
From chapter 22, "Professional Writing Expertise" (Ronald T. Kellog), in the excellent Cambridge Handbook Of Expertise and Expert Performance:
...the converging point are that ... all of the idiosyncratic habits of professional writers
(1) focus attention inward by eliminating distractions,
(2) may alter consciousness to facilitate entry in a flow state, and
(3) help regulate the writer's emotional state to keep at the task.
...
Many choose to write at the same time each working day, but individuals differ from morning, afternoon, evening, late night, to early morning preferences. Work sessions of one to two hours correlate with productivity in scientific writing, but the relationship is weak (r=.22) and the variability is large, with some individuals writing four or more hours at a time. Successful poets also typically write for one or two hours, whereas most novelists typically report longer sessions of two to three or even four to six hours. Running or walking help some writers think through problems while away from the writing table. Others use meditation, coffee, cigarettes, alcohol, or other drugs to alter consciousness in the service of writing.
Now, writing isn't the same as hacking, but as a process it seems to have many things in common with hacking. I seem to remember reading somewhere (couldn't find the page) that most experts in general practise in the morning when energy is at its highest, but this doesn't seem to be the case with hacking. I found this rather curious. My guess is that the page size is typically bigger, which requires longer periods of time to enter flow, compared with say, chess, where 30 minutes is often effective. That still doesn't explain why there aren't as many novelists writing at night as there are hackers. So another, less scientifically backed up, idea is that hacking is less of an expertise and more of a "production task", meaning we often do things we already know perfectly well how to do, something that would require less energy. Computer science is an extremely new field, so it wouldn't be too surprising if we would see hackers that are experts at a whole other level 50 years hence. It could also be a cultural thing, since a lot of hackers start as teenagers when they are still in school. What are your thoughts, HN?
Already-knowing-what-to-do can come from moments of insight in the shower or walking the dog, or can come from state dumps -- written to-do notes -- made after I've loaded sufficient state on an earlier day.
Sometimes both knowing-what-to-do and the time to do it can occur in the same session. This tends to be smaller stuff. And sometimes, after taking that shower the next day, it turns out to be the wrong stuff.
These guys go to bed early and do a 4AM wakeup to get in a couple hours of hacking prior to their families waking up. I'm considering making that switch.
And yeah, going to bed early and waking up early will definitely cut into time with the spouse. Even if all you do is watch TV shows together.
However, I've got the sort of job where I have to be there by around 9-10am. Staying up until 2-3am takes its tolls, and many nights I can't stay up much past 9pm due to only getting 4 hours of sleep the night before. If I were able to sleep later, I'd prefer the 10pm-3am shift. I feel and think better after getting up at 4am than when I stay up until 3am, fighting the desire to just fall asleep on my laptop.
TMUX is very nice to have on those nights I have to fight sleep. I almost always end when I'm at the point that I'm too tired to write logical thoughts any longer. I just shut the laptop lid and go to bed, ignoring the fact that I've still got 3 files open in vim and an active ssh connection...
More generally, I feel sleepy all day until around 11pm, which is when I feel the most awake. I've always been this way, even as a kid before I did any programming.
Late at night, however, that's when I become more alive and I feel like I'm hacking out things on solo projects.
However I voted morning; starting at 5:00AM is fun. I feel extremely positive/optimistic when I wake up, that counts for something I guess.
I write the best code when I first wake up. Combined with the above, it means my ideal work day starts around 6AM and I can get 3 90 minute sessions in before lunch and early afternoon lethargy sets in.
I have 3 basic schedules and often switch them in weekly random manner:
- Wake up 4am to 5am, hack 4 to 5 hours, do something outside, and go to bed early at sundown.
- Wake up 4pm to 5pm, hack through the night, and go to bed at sunrise.
- Wake up sometimes, breakfast, hack 4 to 6 hours, eat, sleep 3 to 4 hours - rinse repeat twice a day.
Most of the time I hack in the night, that's between 11PM and 3 or 4AM. But I also have my moments in the train (30 minutes trip, starting at 17:34). And once even at school (1:30PM or so), that was the best coding experience I ever had at school and also the only time I hacked together with someone in real life.
There isn't really anything that keeps you from hacking at any particular time of day I think, to me there seem to be two prerequisites: You need to have a clear goal (which is something out of the ordinary and not like "get this css done for a client"), and you need to know that nobody will disturb you doing it.
Personally when left to my own ways will migrate my schedule naturally to be nocturnal. Wake up at 2PM and go to bed at 6AM. I feel happier and am way more productive.
It would be interesting to move eight hours in either direction, but keep working remotely - would I get my hacking done at night, but when my coworkers and friends are awake and online, or early in the morning, when most people I know are asleep or not online?
- 2:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. Usually great for bug fixing and such. - 10:00 p.m.- 2:00 a.m. Usually when I am working on big, solo, projects.
EDIT : Adding am/pm once I realized that the numbers were not unique.
Another thought: perhaps as children we're conditioned to be "out doing things" during the day, and as a result the brain desires to be constantly externally stimulated during the day. There's less predefined behaviour for what should occur at night, and as such the brain is at your mercy to utilise as you see fit. Perhaps.
Is this the same case for others who are working late nights?
It has all the benefits of working late (quiet, peaceful, few distractions) with the added bonus of having a clear head. Definitely makes it easier for me to focus on getting stuff done when my head isn't spinning with the collective ideas of the day.
It's gotten quite a bit of traffic (14.4k tweets), but maybe someone still hasn't seen it :)
In college, you are often studying late (much more work in college then high school) -- therefore this continues the trend. After college, you are spending your days programming for your boss, working on projects that may not interest you. Therefore, to keep your sanity, you are forced to do your personal projects late at night again. And after all, this is when you are used to hacking on things from years of experience, so your brain thinks it's normal.
Without distractions my preferred time would be during the day in a room/office with daylight. When I was working a regular dayjob, my most productive hacking hours moved to late night - primarily because of distractions.
I made an app that helps you with that, look for Zone on the Mac App Store, if you're interested.
Although, due to less distractions late night is oftener the sweet spot.