7 ms·

Why productive people get up insanely early

49 points by SanderMak 13y ago

coldcode 13y ago
I guess programmers are never productive then.
- eitland 13y ago
  FWIW: I am a programmer and (sometimes) an early riser
lifeisstillgood 13y ago
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.
- dasil003 13y ago
  > 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.
  - nikomen 13y ago
    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.
    - dasil003 13y ago
      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.
      - lifeisstillgood 13y ago
        True - which kind of indicates its not a same environment - have you tried remote working?
  - lifeisstillgood 13y ago
    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.
    - dasil003 13y ago
      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.
- k-mcgrady 13y ago
  >> "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.
- netvarun 13y ago
  Small nitpick:Satyendra Bose,is the person of 'Boson' fame -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satyendra_Nath_Bose http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satyendra_Nath_Bose Higgs is of 'Higgs Boson' fame and recent Nobel laureate :)
AndrewKemendo 13y ago
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.
- jrs235 13y ago
  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.
- larrys 13y ago
  "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 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).
mistercow 13y ago
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.
- StavrosK 13y ago
  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.
  - mistercow 13y ago
    >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.
    - StavrosK 13y ago
      I did, it checks out.
      - mistercow 13y ago
        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.
Nursie 13y ago
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.
zdw 13y ago
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
moron4hire 13y ago
The only problem with the 9-to-5 schedule is its adherents' insistence that it is the only valid lifestyle.
wreegab 13y ago
I'm up since 5h00 and I produced nothing of value yet.
jheriko 13y ago
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...
- DateK 13y ago
  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?
  - Qworg 13y ago
    Social proof. Your busy colleague has already been vetted as "someone who gets things done" and therefore has been issued more work.
  - marquis 13y ago
    A productive AND busy person is organized, by definition. Productive OR busy may not get you anywhere.
  - larrys 13y ago
    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".
tosseraccount 13y ago
Are there any reproducible studies proving highly productive people wake up early? Or just anecdotes?
recycleme 13y ago
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.
r0h1n 13y ago
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-evidence-of-why-youre-an-owl-or-a-lark.html http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24292-first-physical-e... - http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090623150621.htm 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.
- larrys 13y ago
  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?)
rjzzleep 13y ago
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
namank 13y ago
Insert a few chunks of quiet time in your workday. Mission accomplished.
- eitland 13y ago
  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)
gedrap 13y ago
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.
capkutay 13y ago
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..
dredmorbius 13y ago
Productive people wake up whenever the hell they damn well please.
j45 13y ago
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.

49 points by SanderMak 13y ago

coldcode 13y ago

I guess programmers are never productive then.

eitland 13y ago
FWIW: I am a programmer and (sometimes) an early riser

lifeisstillgood 13y ago

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.

dasil003 13y ago
> 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.
- nikomen 13y ago
  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.
  - dasil003 13y ago
    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.
    - lifeisstillgood 13y ago
      True - which kind of indicates its not a same environment - have you tried remote working?
- lifeisstillgood 13y ago
  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.
  - dasil003 13y ago
    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.
k-mcgrady 13y ago
>> "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.
netvarun 13y ago
Small nitpick:Satyendra Bose,is the person of 'Boson' fame -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satyendra_Nath_Bose http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satyendra_Nath_Bose Higgs is of 'Higgs Boson' fame and recent Nobel laureate :)

AndrewKemendo 13y ago

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.

jrs235 13y ago
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.
larrys 13y ago
"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 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).

mistercow 13y ago

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.

StavrosK 13y ago
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.
- mistercow 13y ago
  >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.
  - StavrosK 13y ago
    I did, it checks out.
    - mistercow 13y ago
      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.

Nursie 13y ago

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.

zdw 13y ago

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

moron4hire 13y ago

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

wreegab 13y ago

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

jheriko 13y ago

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...

DateK 13y ago
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?
- Qworg 13y ago
  Social proof. Your busy colleague has already been vetted as "someone who gets things done" and therefore has been issued more work.
- marquis 13y ago
  A productive AND busy person is organized, by definition. Productive OR busy may not get you anywhere.
- larrys 13y ago
  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".

tosseraccount 13y ago

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

recycleme 13y ago

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.

r0h1n 13y ago

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-evidence-of-why-youre-an-owl-or-a-lark.html http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24292-first-physical-e... - http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090623150621.htm 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.

larrys 13y ago
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?)

rjzzleep 13y ago

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

namank 13y ago

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

eitland 13y ago
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)

gedrap 13y ago

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.

capkutay 13y ago

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..

dredmorbius 13y ago

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

j45 13y ago

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.