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What Is The Morning Writing Effect?
- dylan604 8y agoWhat timing. Couldn't sleep well, and got up even though it was only 4:15am. Pop open HN, and this was at the top of the list. When I grabbed my laptop, it was with the intent of working in Final Draft to work on some things I just can't seem to get to in normal hours. Makes me feel less grumpy about being awake, or for procrastinating by reading HN first.
- asplake 8y agoLarge parts of my second book [1] were written between the hours of 4am and 8am, my wakefulness necessitated by my daughter’s medical issues. Things are more stable at home now, but on my third book [2] I often feel the urge. I’m naturally a morning person, and combined with the benefits of writing uninterrupted, it’s hard to resist, even if it means getting out of bed. If I didn’t, I’d only be composing in my head anyway. [1] https://www.agendashift.com/book https://www.agendashift.com/book [2] https://www.agendashift.com/right-to-left https://www.agendashift.com/right-to-left
- sqs 8y agoMy first question was about how writing prose differs from writing code. The post covers this: > despite being apparently similar activities (both mostly involve slinging text), the temporal timing of software development & writing are strikingly different. Thinking back, I don’t recall early-morning programming being a trend among programmers (programmers are infamous for preferring to come in late and late-night programming sessions which may wrap around the clock, especially in college). It’s fascinating that the stereotypes about writing vs programming line up so perfectly with the RescueTime data. I am very curious to learn/think more about why the 2 activities are stereotypically (and empirically) on opposite schedules. Personally, when writing prose (mostly docs, blog posts, and product plans), I prefer to wake up early and do it in the morning. I much prefer coding at night. My hunch is that this is because interruptions are rarer at night and more bothersome when coding. For anyone else who is both a writer and coder: do you follow the same schedule for both?
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- imustbeevil 8y agoI wake up before 4am (between 11pm the day before and 2am usually). While everyone else spends the last 6 tired hours of their day on their hobbies, I spend the first 6 best hours of my day on my hobbies (writing, coding, etc). I'm definitely nocturnal, I'd just rather not be sleepy, so night is the beginning of my day.
- ryanwaggoner 8y agoI do both, and I also tend to find it easier to write prose early in the day and code later. I think it’s because of the depth of focus that’s required and how fragile it is. I can have a productive 30-60 minute writing session all the time, but unless it’s very trivial work, it takes me so long to get fully in the zone of maximum productivity when coding that it’s really not worth doing unless I have a few hours. And my morning rarely offer that, so I use them to clear the decks so I can do deep work like coding or whatever later in the day. I’m not a natural morning person, but i routinely get up at 430am. I’ve deliberately adjusted to this masochistic schedule over the course of 15 years because I find it so superior in terms of effects on my life. I’m not a natural daily exerciser, healthy eater, relationship builder, etc. either. Sometimes it’s good to push yourself to do things because they’re good for you.
- ahussain 8y agoFor me, writing prose (mostly short stories, journals, memoirs) is more emotionally taxing. To write well I need to find ways to silence the self-censorship that will inevitably prevent me from expressing the things I really want to say. This often happens when I am in a state approaching mania. Donald Glover says he writes in the morning because it is "closer to dreaming". Coding is primarily a task about cognition, so focus/concentration wins. I find I code best in the late morning, when I'm well rested and have had a good breakfast.
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- keiferski 8y agoIt’s fundamentally an anecdotal thing: Kafka, Joyce, Neruda, Eliot, etc. all wrote at night. My working theory is something like “romanticism/emotionalism vs. abstract rationalism”; if you’re writing something that benefits from immediate experience and emotional input (e.g. Kafka writing about nightmarish bureaucracy after working all day in an insurance firm) then it is better to write at night, after the events of the day have happened and your mind has been operating for 12+ hours. Alternatively, if you’re working on a large, broad project that requires long-term, sustained effort and a clear mind, a morning habitual routine is better for making step-by-step progress.
- soufron 8y agoMy own anecdotal evidences: 1. Waking up early is a great thing. 2. Waking up early allows you to be less stressed during the day. 3. It also projects a halo of confidence around you since people receive your stuff first thing when they arrive at work. 4. But the first thing when you wake up should not be work. You can read the press, listen to the radio, catch up with the day.... 5. At some point - after 30/45m, you'll think it's time to get to work. It's an exhilarating feeling. 6. Best time that works for me is 5:30am/6am. 7. Taking the time to do some sport after 8am or 9am is even better.
- mark_l_watson 8y agoI write a lot: probably average writing 1 book every 1 1/2 year over the last 35 years. This may be key: “Yet another version might be that sleep itself is the key: sleep, aside from any resetting, is also responsible for memory formation and appears involved in unconscious processes of creativity.‘ I find the morning is my best work time for either writing or designing and writing software. It seems that often good ideas are just there for the taking in the morning. That said, I often get the same effect after dinner if I have taken the afternoon off for leisure (e.g., hiking all afternoon).
- azag0 8y agoYou might find the book Why We Sleep interesting.
- hownottowrite 8y agoSame. I try to get a few hours done before the cruft of the day creeps in. After that, it's a bit of a wash unless I go for a hike, and then the next round has to be after 4:30PM. 2-4 is the worst, but great for being outdoors.
- sureaboutthis 8y ago> sleep, aside from any resetting, is also responsible for memory formation When my son was little, he had to memorize the 13 colonies of the United States for History class. He was getting frustrated that he just couldn't remember them all. I told him to just read through the list again right before he went to bed. He did so and came home from school that day to tell me, "It worked!".
- the_clarence 8y agoBetter ways to memorize such things: create a story between each colonies so that you can remember it as a linked list.
- EForEndeavour 8y agoAbsolutely. And as a bonus, by using historically accurate stories to link colonies, you'd remember those extra pieces of information "for free."
- nwj 8y agoIf you read this article and found yourself wishing there was more detail about the writing routine of each author, then you might like "Daily Rituals: How Artists Work" [1]. It's a really great small book that goes in detail through the daily routines of many authors and artists. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Daily-Rituals-How-Artists-Work/dp/0307273601 https://www.amazon.com/Daily-Rituals-How-Artists-Work/dp/030...
- Sir_Cmpwn 8y agoInteresting, though little in the way of hard evidence. I personally write in the evenings, and do an editing pass the next morning. However, I do feel like I write code better in the mornings than later in the day. When I have an hour and a half before I leave for work and I decide to write some code, I've found that I can generally get a lot more done than I expected.
- ivanstame 8y agoNot related to writing but I found that I usually solve problems and bugs the first thing in the morning. Always thought that's because I am the freshest in the morning.
- weehobbes 8y agoFew thoughts: For me personally, I experience a lot of ego depletion during the day. But having kids tends to do that. There's no way I can write at the end of the day, I'm just way to mentally tired. Also as someone who both codes and writes, writing is far more emotionally taxing. Coding is problem solving - there is usually a clear path to follow and I generally know when I've solved a problem. Writing for me is unclear and amorphous. There is almost never a road map, and I never really know when I've "finished." Finally, I think that lark/owl stereotypes are overblown. Up through college, I was absolutely an owl and did my best work from 10pm to 2am. Once I entered the workforce, I was forced into becoming a lark and after a painful transition, loved mornings and did my best work from 6am to 10am. 18 years later, I'm still a "lark" but from time to time, I have to pull late nights and my "owl" tendencies come back quite easily for short periods of time. But I need 8-9 hours of sleep... I can't do both lark and owl at the same time. I think studies show that the vast majority of people are in the middle - neither larks nor owls, and for those people, I believe you can train yourself to be whichever one you want.
- chrisweekly 8y agoI'm reading a terrific book -- "When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing"[1] -- that reviews the literature on this exact topic. Recommended. 1. http://a.co/hY8eixX http://a.co/hY8eixX
- haddr 8y agoAny takeaways from that book?
- chrisweekly 8y agoDisclaimer: only 1/2 done reading it. So far, the biggest actionable takeaway for me is the importance of taking breaks. I have the luxury of working for myself, mostly from my home office, which allows me the oppty to experiment w/ different ways to manage my workday. At some point I will write something longer-form about my system...
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- inputcoffee 8y agoAlternative explanation for modern writers: write then there is less breaking news. “Important” news feels important and one may feel more justified in attending to it.
- bitxbitxbitcoin 8y agoAs a former beat journalist I can anecdotally attest to this. By number, I've definitely written about more "breaking news" in the morning than at night. The content I'd write about at night would invariably have to be more interesting to me than whatever needs to be written about in the morning due to personal fatigue more than anything.
- wowamit 8y agoAnecdotally speaking, I tend to write well late in the nights -- when everyone's gone to sleep. I tend to focus well, think throughout the evenings. I think it also depends on the most distracting-free time. For me, it is late night. Can it also be about geography? I am not sure if there is a correlation between the region an author belongs to and his writing habits. I couldn't find any reference in shared article.
- pcurve 8y agoI'm a night owl so I tend to get more things done at night. However, when I wake up in morning, I can actually physically feel my brain focused and clear. Unfortunately once I get to work, that feeling is all gone as the brain tries to adjust to world of constant context switching between meetings, projects, and people.
- chrisweekly 8y agoThe question of timing -- finding the optimal "when" for various activities -- is an interesting and useful one to study. I'm reading and enjoying a book[1] that does precisely that. 1. [When: the Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing](http://a.co/hY8eixX http://a.co/hY8eixX)
- pasbesoin 8y agoI'm in circumstances (allergies, noise, etc.) that leave me feeling relatively poorly in the morning. They can clear somewhat during the day, leaving me feeling better and clearer headed in the evening -- except that then I'm fighting tiredness. I'd suggest it may not just be morning. It may be also how you feel -- then and at other times. This is my point: That it may not be just time of day, but also your state of health and well-being at that time of day. I hope to move to circumstances that leave me feeling better in the morning. I miss it.
- bitxbitxbitcoin 8y agoAnecdotally, moving to the desert and waking up feeling dry and stuffy in the mornings has reduced my morning writing urges.
- antirez 8y agoI'm a night person but I never write code by night, mostly in the morning. Because when the day starts I simply have a lot more urgency of doing something creative. Later in the day I start to be less interested and tired and want to do less stressful activities.
- ajkjk 8y agoI find that creativity on a subject comes to me when my brain has taken a long break from it and thoroughly switched to another subject. It makes sense that sleeping functions to force my brain to look away from something, so when I return to it I have fresh eyes and new ideas. Conversely, complicated technical work like coding seems easiest when I've got it all loaded into my brain. It makes sense that this would be true after a long day of thinking about it and building connections, but before it partially unloads overnight.
- Tycho 8y agoI suspect there’s a strong selection bias here: nobody likes to admit they are a slob who doesn’t rise till noon, whereas people will gladly tell you they follow a Spartan regime and rise before dawn (even if they only manage that one week per year).
- lordnacho 8y agoI buy the third explanation, that sleep is key. How often do you find yourself thinking about code in your sleep? A lot, right? And then when you wake up somehow you have some clarity about the problem to hand. Once you've mucked around a bit and found the solution, cleaned it up, written some unit tests, and documented it, you're a bit tired. And the next problem is starting to form without being entirely clear.
- ThrowawayR2 8y ago> A lot, right? Can't say I've ever thought about code in my sleep. Is that a common thing among coders?
- evincarofautumn 8y agoI sometimes dream about being & moving amongst the abstract structures that I build in my head when reasoning about a complex problem. Sometimes it gives me an insight; others, it’s meaningless, the Tetris effect in another form.
- Jill_the_Pill 8y agoSometimes that is really poor-quality sleep, when your brain is gnawing on a complex problem.
- vorpalhex 8y agoI've solved many difficult problems sleeping or showering.
- Jill_the_Pill 8y agoI wake up with answers. My first waking thought is often a solution or something I failed to notice.
- DanielBMarkham 8y agoMy theory? We think while we sleep. It's not a "normal" kind of thinking, more free association as your brain wanders around various connections it's made, testing them out. But I also believe we string together larger concepts. We just don't remember it. When you awaken, your mind has all of those new tentative associations and is ready to try them out by writing them down. As you go through the day, it gets "cluttered" again, going back to using almost extensively older, tried-and-true connections.
- phendrenad2 8y agoI find that a day spent hacking away at computer code usually results in a burst of creative energy right after work. My best -but also silliest - writing has been done then.
- fouc 8y agoI'd be curious if there's any correlation between morning/night work and introversion/extroversion. For some reason I imagine extroverted people would be more likely to work at night than morning.
- sytelus 8y agoCoincidentally I visited Hemingway's house in Key West just today. The guide told us that he had made a habit of waking up at 6 AM, move to study room and wait for 700 words to be written or lunch - whichever comes first. He would then go out for fishing rest of the afternoon and then in the night go to nearby Sloppy Joe's bar to mingle with public which often gave him inspiring story ideas. Personally, however, the best work I have done is after 5 PM when most people have left the office. I go out for quick snack, come back to office and go in to midnight. The chatter around in office, emails etc are too distracting for full focus.
- CydeWeys 8y ago> and then in the night go to nearby Sloppy Joe's bar to mingle with public which often gave him inspiring story ideas. Well let's be honest -- the main reason he went to the bar was to get drunk. He was a notorious alcoholic.
- pramit 8y agoThe 25 Most Useful Productivity Methods https://www.thesuccessmanual.in/chapter/the-25-most-useful-productivity-methods https://www.thesuccessmanual.in/chapter/the-25-most-useful-p...