Ask HN: What hours in the day are you most productive?

6 points by tech_crawl_ ↗ HN
I am most productive from 9pm - 1am... Just wondering when people get the most work done.

21 comments

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6am-10am...this means that when I work a 9-5 office job, my most productive hours are spent preparing for work and commuting.
Same here! I actually just started showing up at 6 AM, shorter commute, better work, and no guilt if I leave before 5.
5am - 3pm. After that - it's a downhill slide.
Do you usually leave around 3pm or stay at work?
I am a workaholic independent consultant - so I tend to work until 6.
3 - 8 PM. I tend to stay late at work as a result.
Do you usually get to work later?
Yes, I usually go into work at 10 or so. I wake up at 6:15, get my kids ready, do exercise, eat breakfast, and head in to work.
So you don't get to eat dinner with the kids?
I'm most productive from 3 - 8, but I usually don't work past 7:30. I cook dinner most nights and eat with the kids, but I am usually washing up while they eat. They're young, so it's not a `sit around the table` experience just yet. I clean them up/change them and they go to bed by 9:30. It's not a bad existence. :)
7-11am and then again 8pm-12am.
I'm almost exactly the same (8am-12pm and 8pm-12am). When I'm working for myself I spend my afternoons reading or playing video games and go back to work in the evening.
10pm-6am. I am exactly a night person.
11am - 3pm, and a push 3pm - 4pm. Relief at 5pm and a slow cool-down.

A regular hour office job, but largely '50% time' which I'm ridiculously lucky to have, long may it be that way.

Evenings are a time for inspiration, and mornings for licking-off stuff mainly related to admin and documentation.

Time to work with and interact with colleagues is very important. It is a magnifier. What I've learnt the most regarding my own productivity is I do too much, and it is probably easier to have others do it. That's done by sharing and influencing, and helping out when colleagues are in need.

10am-1pm, then again from 7pm-10pm

Obviously right now it is neither of those times, since I am oh-so-productively posting to HN. ;)

"After lunch"

This was true when I worked the nightshift and began working at 3pm and ate something around 5pm and was true when I moved to dayshift and started work around 8:30 or 9am and is true now when I typically start working between 9am and 10am. In all three cases, the first two hours of my day are/were spent doing relatively easy things and then more serious work happens/happened after eating lunch.

I'm most productive early in the morning. I work remote so sometimes I get started as early as 4 or 5 AM. So I have a full workday in by noon or 1pm. I usually turn in around 10pm most nights.
I'm most productive 2:00 am to 5:00 pm after of that hours must sleep 2 hours more 5:00am to 7:00 am and at the 8:00 am I'ḿ ready for go to work
8 a.m. til 10 a.m. Or to put it another way, until other people come into the office :)

I used to come in late (midday) but commuting changes forced me to become an early riser. Now I honestly couldn't go back.