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I relate to OP's notion of "free hours". Simple programming tasks took me twice the usual time late at night, and after 1am I just couldn't come up with anythin

I relate to OP's notion of "free hours". Simple programming tasks took me twice the usual time late at night, and after 1am I just couldn't come up with anything creative. That's great that you work well in the evening, but not everyone works this way. When I shifted to morning schedule, I didn't waste time on doing tasks slowly at night, so these are my free hours.

gh02t 11y ago
I think it varies quite a bit from person to person. For me, the peak productivity time is 11-3 (PM). I wake up at 9:30, have breakfast and coffee while doing some casual reading and then work until 5ish with a break for lunch. On this schedule I'm usually at least as productive as the people I work with even though I'm "on the clock" for fewer hours. I find I tend to have extremely high productivity but I can't maintain it for as long, so it balances out. Keeping going after I'm tired to meet an 8 hour requirement is just a waste of time and the work I do after I'm burned out is crap. When I've tried working longer hours (by starting earlier) my total productivity goes down significantly. I know a lot of people who just say you get used to getting up earlier, but I never do. Even maintaining an early-ish schedule waking up at 6:30 for a full year, I was just plain miserable every day and it never got better. On the other hand, I know plenty of people who only get stuff done in the morning and rise early. Whatever works, but it sucks when jobs force everybody to start on an stupendously early schedule. But it cuts both ways - I don't want to force other people to work on my schedule if that makes them miserable.