In this discussion on Hacker News about how to develop focus, a commenter makes a good observation:
"We tend to have a habit of projecting what works for us, onto others."
Specifically the user was talking about the advice to get up early and accomplish something before 8am. He pointed out his experience with a very productive developer who rarely came into the office before noon.
I completely agree with that sentiment. I am and always will be a night person. As I've gotten older I've found it a little harder to stay up late but I still find I'm most productive in late afternoon or early to late evening. That is, anything from 4PM to 2AM is pretty much my sweet spot.
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I'm also fine doing stuff around 10-11am or so, but if I do happen to wake up early and get things done, that just means I'll have to take a long nap in the middle of the afternoon if I want to be productive after 1pm. So it really doesn't matter if I wake up early or not — either way, I'm probably going to end up doing a bulk of the work in the evening or late afternoon.
But like the commenter said, this isn't going to be true for everyone. That's just me. I mean, I'm literally writing this newsletter at 1:44am the day it's getting scheduled to be sent out! I wouldn't recommend that for most, but it works for some.
Likewise with the advice to get stuff done before 8am. It probably does work for most people, but many (like me) will have trouble with it in the long haul.
Now on to this week's hand-picked productivity links!
