Why productive people get up insanely early | Hacker News Reader

Why productive people get up insanely early

fastcompany.com

49 pointsSanderMak41 comments

I'm know we're all searching for the next great "hack" to make us more productive, but frankly this article is an example of how not to go about it.

Firstly, the title seems to suggest most productive people get up insanely early. Yet, the only example in it of someone who does that is, well, the author.

Then of course there's the typically prescriptive and reductive approach that takes anecdotal or highly controlled examples and presents them as almost a gospel.

I personally know more productive people who don't get up insanely early, than otherwise. Maybe I should tell them to change their habits. Plus, there's more and more research that says the "larks" and "owls" among us may be wired differently in their brains:

- http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24292-first-physical-e...

- http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090623150621.ht...

To cut it short, sure, getting up early is good provided you can pull it off. But its equally possible you may end up being less productive merely trying to screw around with your existing sleep patterns and daily schedules.

Agree with your point.

"but frankly this article is an example of"

Articles like this just end up being a forum for discussion on a particular topic that is of interest [1].

A story or blog post is put on HN and people feast on it giving their own personal experience or taking issue with the title's claim and how it might be to broad, downright wrong or otherwise screwed up.

The same themes come up over and over again. I wonder why there just isn't a weekly feature giving people the opportunity to post their own latest, um, "research" into what they do to stay productive. Like a "Tell HN".

[1] Popularity determined by time of day posted, who is writing, where it was written, the topic and how polarizing their thoughts are. More absolute tends to mean more activity everything else being equal. (Have I missed anything?)

This is a common theme around here lately: having time to ourselves to work/think without incoming needs or expectations from others.

A bunch of people have solutions, from work spaces with isolation rooms, like the nap rooms at the huffington post, to going on a cruise to do your best development.

It all seems to me to point to one major thing, we are overburdening ourselves. Most of this overburdening is by choice because we all need to be productive, otherwise we will not feel like we are changing the world. Founders are reporting being depressed and having anxiety issues. As a result we are all grasping for whatever we can to unburden ourselves while at the same time maintaining productivity. To me these things are impossible to an extent. Yes there are little hacks here and there and efficiencies can be gained but on the whole you either need to be able to deal with a shitload of stress, or figure out how to remove things from your plate.

I am guessing that there will be a mass tipping point for the entrepreneur/startup community where a significant number of people are having panic attacks and massive anxiety disorders because we just really all can't be Bill Gates/Steve Jobs/Elon Musk no matter how many hours we put in on the cruise ship at 4 AM.

Either that or everyone will start signing up for intensive training for how to deal with high stress environments.

Is it a common theme HERE lately because this drive for productivity is more of a start-up / small shop phenomenon?

If you've ever worked in some larger "dinosaur" (Fortune 1500) companies it can be maddening that it can take two weeks what would take two days in a start up/small shop.

I think the need to produce in start-ups drives this HERE. The dinosaurs are established [and are making money]. They also are not competing for VC funding and don't have to prove their abilities.

Most people that have worked for Fortune 1500 companies seemed to have come to terms with "how it is" and do not stress if they aren't moving/producing as fast as they know they could individually.

To me it seems, and I suffer from this too, many in this community here aren't rarely satisfied with the status quo and are driven (at an unhealthy pace at times) to improve it.

"Most of this overburdening is by choice because we all need to be productive, otherwise we will not feel like we are changing the world. Founders are reporting being depressed and having anxiety issues."

Grumpy gramps here.

Would like to point out that back in the day this was known as "keeping up with the Jones".

And had nothing to do with changing the world.

Just keeping up with the Joneses.

The big difference is way back you weren't really aware of the things that other people were doing other than your neighbors, some relatives, or people who hit it big enough to make it into the press. When I was growing up you heard about 1 billionaire, Howard Hughes. That was pretty much it. [1] Every now and then the local big city paper would run a story on a businessman that had done particular well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keeping_up_with_the_Joneses

[1] Forgetting inflation and magic numbers ("1 billion") the press really didn't report on business people. And corporate execs made way less than they do today (even accounting for inflation).

"Would like to point out that back in the day this was known as "keeping up with the Jones"...And had nothing to do with changing the world."

To me "Keeping up with the Joneses" always had a clear material connotation eg: more money, bigger house, better car etc... I drew the distinction about changing the world because I think that is the difference between generations.

I completely agree that this generation does the same peer comparisons, it's just that our metric is influence and "disrupting" the status quo rather than accumulation of wealth (though its often tough to divorce those things).

"I completely agree that this generation does the same peer comparisons, it's just that our metric is influence and "disrupting" the status quo rather than accumulation of wealth (though its often tough to divorce those things)."

Sure but is that the case because you all actually organically think that way or because the peer group exhibits those tendencies and make you think that way? Further perhaps you (I mean the group not the individual where ymmv) grew up with more so they aren't as hungry or needing material goods?

When we were growing up with got like 2 toys per year. Birthday and holiday. Or close to it. And we were middle class not poor. And there weren't many toys to begin with. Parents in general were more strict and didn't spoil kids. And you didn't go out to eat practically ever (weren't that many restaurants like today) and tv was black and white and not much entertainment. So there weren't as many distractions. So money was a way to have more fun. Oh and another thing was you needed money because you were raised where your parents controlled everything and weren't your friend or someone you would hang with.

Want to make it clear that of course there were individual exceptions to anything that I've said above. But things were different and that difference meant you ended up having different needs and values.

When I was a kid my dad payed for 1/2 of the money to buy me a tty that I could use to dial up to the time share. The fact that he even agreed to do that was a big deal. I had to work and make 1/2 the money but felt lucky that he was willing to help me out. By comparison I just bought my daughter a macbook air and didn't even think twice about it. Even got her the extra memory and larger flash drive.

TL;DR - I got up early to beat depression, found I had loads of time to get work done uninterrupted.

I want to make two comments - firstly there is something very wrong with the business world when you have to avoid the 9-5 full of interruptions to get any work done. I know this from experience.

Secondly compare this to the Peter Higgs (of Bosun fame) saying he would never have got an academic post today because he would not be seen as productive enough - in other words he did not get up at 4 to do a days work before going and doing a days interruptions.

We are getting something terribly terribly wrong with our working days.

> firstly there is something very wrong with the business world when you have to avoid the 9-5 full of interruptions to get any work done. I know this from experience.

If you are a low-level programmer or work for a very small startup yes, but at scale communication and coordination overhead is necessary and significant.

As a tech lead I am keenly aware of the tension between the fact that interruptions may shoot my technical work to hell, but if it helps 10 other people be twice as productive that day it might well be worth it to sacrifice my own productivity, especially if the interruption is of the "teach a man to fish" variety.

9 times out of 10 interruptions that I remember had nothing to do with improving others productivity but getting around what can best be thought if as systemic pathologies - meetings to convince people who should have no power over the project the project was on track, discussing schedules and projections. Rarely were the right people involved.

So be glad your interruptions have a net value. Maybe my anecdata is untypical - It would be nice to think so.

This is a non-sequitur. Paraphrasing the thread:

OP says "there is something wrong with the business world where you have to avoid the interruptions of the 9-5 to get things done"

I reply "even if nothing is wrong, the needs of others can conflict with the need for focus"

Then you reply "but most interruptions are not necessary for anybody's productivity".

That has nothing to do with my point. I'm not diagnosing the work world in general. I'm saying even if you fix all the problems, there will still necessarily be distractions in the 9-5 that an engineer might seek to avoid.

I find that it's not the necessary communication interruptions that are the problem. Of course communication is necessary. However, it's the unnecessary interruptions that are the problem. They could be rude people, poor climate control, or any number of other things. I'm not sure why business people and managers refuse to remedy these issues. It seems like so many companies are content with lower productivity.

Okay, good for you, but both you and the GP are trying to force a false dichotomy.

I am saying that a legitimate work environment where everything is relatively sane and people are respectful can still be tremendously distracting when you need heads down time.

True - which kind of indicates its not a same environment - have you tried remote working?

Small nitpick:Satyendra Bose,is the person of 'Boson' fame -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satyendra_Nath_Bose

Higgs is of 'Higgs Boson' fame and recent Nobel laureate :)

>> "in other words he did not get up at 4 to do a days work before going and doing a days interruptions."

I would think that if you got up at 4am you could get your work finished in less time (say by noon). Unless your job relied on communicating with other people during working hours (9-5) that seems feasible to me.

I suspect that the causation is backwards here. Studies of highly driven people show that they tend to have naturally higher dopamine levels than less driven people (I'm grossly oversimplifying here, but anyway). In effect, they are on stimulants all the time - natural ones created by their own bodies. And that's going to create a correlation between productivity and early rising right there.

How do stimulants relate to rising early? If anything, they might relate to needing less sleep, but that still only means you get up early if you go to sleep early.

>they might relate to needing less sleep, but that still only means you get up early if you go to sleep early.

I think you might want to check your math there.

I did, it checks out.

No it doesn't. I don't want to be mean, but this is really basic addition. If you need less sleep, you can get up earlier without going to sleep earlier.

I rise late and I work late. If left to it my most productive time seems to be 6-11pm.

I've never really been that bothered by the 'distractions' of the 9-5 though. I've always worked in collaborative, open-plan spaces and I've never really seen the problem with them. If you need a bit of 'away time', put your headphones on for a while.

Alternatively, staying up insanely late gets you the same interruption-free time. The number interruptions you'd get between 4-8AM is probably similar between 9PM-1AM

The only problem with the 9-to-5 schedule is its adherents' insistence that it is the only valid lifestyle.

There is one really good point in the post: expectations.

I am naturally an owl. I prefer staying up late, I love sitting in the dark at 2 or 3am. Have no problem if I have to do some extra work and stay up to 5am.

But it sucks that if I wake up at around noon, and start working at 3pm. At 5pm, when going for lunch, and the city is full of traffic jams, I think 'damn they all are going home and I just started'. It gets harder at winter because I live in north England so I hardly get any sun light. It's harder even more, because I live with my gf in a studio and sometimes wake her up at some random time by eating or typing.

So while I naturally enjoy sitting to late, I have to get up earlier because, well, I don't live in isolation.

I guess programmers are never productive then.

FWIW: I am a programmer and (sometimes) an early riser

I'm up since 5h00 and I produced nothing of value yet.

As a lifelong night owl, I discovered when I could get to bed by 9:30 or 10, waking up at 3-4 am gave me easily the energy I'd normally have doing late night stuff after a long day.

For me it seems to have to do with being mentally rested, not much in the way of distractions, and making sure to make a list of a few things I could dive into without thought to get going. I wish I could do it every day, because I don't regret it when I do.

For anyone discounting this strategy without having tried it -- I get the studies about night owl vs larks. Try it yourself first to see how it works. Waking up early is the road less travelled, staying up late in a way is the default way of operating.

Are there any reproducible studies proving highly productive people wake up early?

Or just anecdotes?

er... what? all of the most productive people I know are terrible at timekeeping and sleeping at a reasonable time. the 'good' ones at timekeeping amongst them are routinely 15 minutes late, and they won't go to bed in general until past 12.

there may be some kind of sampling bias... my experience of people who do get in early to work hard - rather than stay late, with few exceptions (two otoh), is that they are not especially productive people anyway...

There was a saying, which goes something like "If you want something to be accomplished, give it to the busiest colleague."

Why is it so?

Social proof. Your busy colleague has already been vetted as "someone who gets things done" and therefore has been issued more work.

My answer to that would be that a busy person tends to work quicker (always on the move because of the pressure of so many things going on) and ends up being more efficient and driven by deadlines.

So they can squeeze in an additional amount of work. The person with very little to do should in theory be able to get the work done. But they have no deadline since they have so much time to complete. I guess this thought ties in somewhat with the saying "work expands to fill the time available for completion".

This is one reason why deadlines are important. Deadlines force people to take action in order to not miss a deadline. And become very motivating. At least that is what I find from personal experience.

When negotiating or making a deal I always use deadlines in order to get people to act on something right away. Otherwise (as once again the saying goes) "time kills all deals".

A productive AND busy person is organized, by definition. Productive OR busy may not get you anywhere.

I find that I get a similar result when I work from the home office even during business hours. Although distractions can be nice sometimes, during crunch time, I'd rather WFH to minimize them.

I went a few months forcing myself to get up early. Though I got used to it being up at 6 and working by 7, I couldn't ignore the blanket of grogginess I felt all day..

i see a lot of very good criticism here, but does noone bother the fact that op claims "productive people get up insanely early" and then continues with for me?

well i'm glad you found your optimal timeframe. good for you

Productive people wake up whenever the hell they damn well please.

Insert a few chunks of quiet time in your workday. Mission accomplished.

For many this is not an option: in crowded offices with no access control this is the exact problem.

I guess working extremely early and/or late is what some people fall back to after trying every other trick in the book (headset, ask people to stop interrupting when headset on, ask for a quiet ropm etc etc)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com