Ask HN: When are you most alert? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: When are you most alert?

bbc.co.uk

I'm most alert in the late morning or late evening.

However, for me, alertness is almost negatively correlated with actually getting things done --- unless I'm working on the "1% inspiration" parts, I have major trouble staying on task.

For the "99% perspiration" that makes up any project, the early morning is often better. I'm not so tired as to fall back asleep, but I also feel as dull as a butter knife -- which actually helps with plowing through the necessary tasks that don't necessarily inspire excitement.

I'm a 'night' person, that's when I work best, when it is absolutely quiet around me.

But there seems to be no way to get that in there.

I'm more of a morning person, I will usually wake up (naturally, without an alarm clock) around 6am, which gives me a few hours to get some work done without any distractions.

I put my information into this survey, and it shows a dip in my "alertness" around 3pm. I've heard that a good way to calculate this is to figure out the midpoint of your normal sleep time (so if you go to bed around midnight and get up at 8am, your midpoint is 4am) then add 12 hours. I've found that napping briefly (10-15 minutes) around this time gives me a lot more energy in the afternoons/evenings.

I'm most alert in the mid-morning, about an hour after I sit down at the computer. My mind is active and energetic at that time, and I'm keenly aware of practical issues, such as schedules and customers. This is the best time to prioritize my tasks and do straightforward design work. I also spend this time figuring out what practical preparation needs to be done and making sure I have the resources (docs, working boxes, software tools, and so forth) to do it. If there are any bugs or broken tools that will hold back my work, this is when I'm most likely to have the initiative to fix them.

Later in the day I'm more theoretical and less practical. This is when I crank out the LOC, when I'm relaxed into a groove and really inhabiting the world that I mapped out that morning. I definitely don't get as much coding done when I'm super-alert. The right state of mind for coding is entirely different from the right state of mind for grunt analysis and design work. This can be a problem when I need to mode-switch back and forth between coding and analysis. HOWEVER, really difficult design questions that require imagination are usually solved late in the day, in my relaxed, theoretical frame of mind.

I'm a night person, but if I force myself to get up early and go for a run then immediately after I am at my most alert, no matter it is 12 hours away from what is usually my most productive time of the day. I guess cave people didn't have a choice when it was time to run from a sabre-toothed tiger.

At least not the cave people that survived.

Even though most animals won't eat carrion, I don't think snoring helps when playing dead. I'm a heavy sleeper and when something jars me awake, I could do a mile run in my boxers, so I really believe exercise has a serious effect on your alertness . . . although that could be the effect of adrenaline and dopamine released during exercise.

Strangely, I'm always sleepy after exercise. If I go for a run, I'll feel like taking a nap when I'm done.

Having a siesta seems to be hard-wired into us

Good! I crash harder at 5:00 pm than at any time during the night. Glad to see there's a good reason for that.

I also like having a "siesta". Breaks my day into two distinct and effective work sessions.

I always wondered about that too - I talked to Jim a few years ago and was extremely interested in his research into circadian rhythm, travel adapation etc. Very interesting subject area.

Not in the mrnging

  Woke early one morning,
  The earth lay cool and still,
  When suddenly a tiny bird,
  Perched on my window sill,

  It sang a song so lovely,
  So carefree and so gay,
  That slowly all my troubles,
  Began to slip away,

  It sang of far off places,
  Of laughter and of fun,
  It seemed his very song,
  Brought out the morning sun,

  I pulled back the covers,
  And crept slowly out of bed,
  And gently shut the window,
  And crushed his freaking head,

  Because I'm not a morning person.

I have this printed and stapled to the wall in the office :)

I am missing the 1am-6am period, this is by far the time I feel most alert and manage to get the most work done. Apparently having utter silence and few distractions help! (even though I always listen to music while I work)

Generally around 11 am for a few hours and then again from maybe 6-10. I try to get to bed by 1:30 and wake up around 8:30.

If I don't eat and have coffee I'm like a monster.

I am morning person. I usually design code most important functions,classes in the morning & surely introduce much lesser bugs in them.

Around 30 minutes after I eat dinner, which I usually do around 8:00 PM, up to or through midnight, thereabouts.

Hah, my schedule is just outside the bounds of the BBC poll. I must be a freak. My ideal day is 12 PM to 4 AM.

I'm most productive when it's light out, but I like to stay up late and get up late.

12 am.

6pm

At midnight when I go hunting the man eaters of Bengal Sunderbans

"# Afternoon tiredness can be overcome by coffee or a 20 minute nap (ideally both, since caffeine takes 20 minutes before it gets through your system). # If you like to limit your caffeine intake, you may want to save your quota for when you experience your natural dip. "

Evil! I don't drink caffeine! I usually get 6-7 hrs of sleep but I am most awake at around 10pm-12 or 1 am.

I found NOT drinking caffeine improves my overall alertness. Without it I set my own rhythm for waking up, sleeping, being tired, etc. With it I just get these spikes of alert after drinking coffee, then even more down, then more alert, etc. It makes my day completely unbearable, and god forbid I don't get my coffee.

However I noticed my most alert time is mainly due to the fact that around 10pm to 1am nobody bothers me. I can pretty much do whatever I want without anyone pestering me for "honey-dos" or any distractions.

Yes, I find that having no caffeine at all improves my average overall alertness, almost completely cutting out the highs and lows, both. However, I really like the hyperalert state that caffeine brings, and I don't know any way to get it without, so I put up with the lows that accompany it, going off caffeine every year or so for a few weeks to reset the effect (which gradually wears down so that the hyperalert state approaches mere alertness).

When I'm being chased by zombies.

When a gun is pointed at me by a man with very good aim.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com