
4 a.m. Is the Most Productive Hour - prostoalex
http://www.wsj.com/articles/why-4-a-m-is-the-most-productive-hour-1471971861?mod=e2fb
======
throwaway26960
I recently started waking up at 4 a.m and go to bed at 8-9pm. It has done
wonders for my life. I realized I was confusing my personal task list with my
work task list - the two should not be confused. I complete all my personal
tasks in the morning, such as, studying a new language, practicing a musical
instrument, learning to draw, and a couple other skills I want to learn and
improve. Then when I'm worn out and it's time for work, I'm greeted with a
mile high todo list that never ends, but I feel satisfied knowing that at
least I accomplished my goals for the day, which is all that matters. The mile
high work task list will be there tomorrow... it'll always be there. It has
allowed me to put myself first.

~~~
flanfly
Some years ago I started my day at 4 a.m. to exercise. While it worked, this
kept me from having any social life outside from talking to coworkers. Getting
a drink with friends in the afternoon is impossible if you want to keep this
schedule, so I stopped. Being productive isn't everything in life. I'm only 30
but I doubt I will ever look back wishing I worked harder alone in my room
instead of being with my friends.

~~~
thegoodlab
Well getting drunk with friends in the afternoon doesn't seem like it's the
answer to life either. I'm 31 and wake up at 5am during the week. Get to the
gym before getting into the office at 7:30. Definitely have enough time to get
drinks with friends here or there. I'm not staying out all night partying by
any means, but there is certainly a way to make it work.

“Looking back over a life of hard work … my only regret is that I didn’t work
even harder.” \- H. L. Mencken

Sorry, I don't mean to troll, I just dislike the strawman argument of "[being
productive/working/etc] isn't everything in life."

~~~
JDiculous
> Top 5 Regrets of the Dying: (2) I wish I hadn’t worked so hard. (4) I wish I
> had stayed in touch with my friends.

~~~
nine_k
I suppose that people on their death bed are pretty much biased, hardly less
than average population. Human memory is quite imperfect and selective.

~~~
RDeckard
Inevitably, some day, you will empathize.

~~~
nine_k
Definitely! I have hard time understanding my future self, and my future self
may have hard time understanding me as of now. People change, and what feels
important at medium term (a few years) also changes. There's hardly a single
right answer good for all ages.

------
SyneRyder
For anyone deciding if it's worth clicking through: it's mostly a list of
anecdotes about early-riser CEOs & people who workout as soon as they wake up.
I didn't see anything about those who work through the night.

[I personally find 4am is often productive for me, but that's because I work
at night, and I'll only continue coding at 4am if I'm already in the zone. If
I'm not making progress, I'll want to crash to sleep long before then.]

~~~
perseusprime11
When do you sleep?

~~~
SyneRyder
I generally sleep 3am - 10am, but it varies. Midnight is about the earliest,
and 7am if I'm still in the zone / peak concentration. I try to sleep 8 hours
every night, so if I go to sleep at 7am I won't wake until 3pm.

I'm a solo developer, mostly working on my own projects, but even when I work
with remote clients I maintain what they call "vampire hours". Since I'm based
in Australia, my weird productive hours naturally align with Berlin time.

_asummers asked about socializing - being naturally nocturnal makes it easier
to go to nightclubs & concerts, or invite friends to restaurants or a moonlite
all-nite diner. It's great if you have insomniac friends!

I also track my time/concentration using a program called Vitamin-R for Mac
[1]. I've found my peak productive coding hours are 10pm - midnight. (4am -
7am is my actual 'peak', but I think that's because I only work those hours if
I'm already in the zone.)

[1]
[http://www.publicspace.net/Vitamin-R/](http://www.publicspace.net/Vitamin-R/)

~~~
rubicon33
I wish I had your life. My DREAM is to work on my own projects, in my peak
productivity time, which is naturally from 10pm to around 3am.

That's my dream, and one I strive to achieve before I'm old and tired. I'm 28
now.

Working a 9-6 just isn't fun when it's a) not my project b) not my peak
productivity time.

If you don't mind me asking... Are you retired?

~~~
klibertp
I have a similar schedule to the GP: I frequently start my day around noon,
start working around 3 pm, get a break around 7 pm for a couple of hours (to
interact with my SO, who is back from work then), then work well into the
night. That schedule is only disturbed when there's an important meeting
during the day.

Funny thing is I don't even work 100% remotely (well, I sometimes visit the
office...) - I just work for the company which couldn't care less about when I
work as long as I deliver. So, while I'm not working on my own projects I
still can choose when and how I work. It's been this way for 3-4 years and I
just turned 30 a couple of weeks back.

So what I want to say is that you don't need to be retired or be an
entrepreneur to have a freedom to choose your working hours. It's actually a
good thing for the company because my working hours overlap with working hours
of people half a world away, for/with who we frequently work.

So don't give up, search for opportunities and you'll sooner or later find a
place where you can work according to your own schedule.

------
morgante
I was really hoping for more anecdotes on night owls.

2am-4am is definitely the most productive time for me and I regularly stay up
that late, deep in the programming zone.

Of course, I shouldn't really have expected the WSJ to highlight night owls.
We've turned sleep schedules into a morality play, where waking up at 4am is
somehow impressive and virtuous while waking up at 10/11am is slothful (even
if you spent all night getting lots of work done).

~~~
Hydraulix989
We're hackers though, you're one of us.

From pg himself:

"I used to program from dinner till about 3 am every day, because at night no
one could interrupt me. Then I'd sleep till about 11 am, and come in and work
until dinner on what I called 'business stuff.'"

[http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html)

~~~
acjohnson55
I did a similar thing for a while, when working on my startup. Actually, I
free-wheeled it. I stopped trying to go to sleep, and just slept when I needed
to. I'd typically crash between 4am and 8am, sleep for about 4 hours, get some
business work done, take a 3 hour nap, and then get into my night routine.

It was fantastic for when I had solitary work to get done. Not so great for
social life. I could go out, but that would be like taking half a day off.

------
Hydraulix989
This was obviously written by a "morning person."

Like most engineers and other creatives, 4 AM is when I'm just starting to get
my deep sleep (which peaks at 6-7 AM).

12-2 AM is the most productive time of the day for me.

~~~
jff
> Like most engineers and other creatives

Free yourself of culturally-assigned norms ("engineers and creative people
work best at midnight, with lots of coffee") and consider a wider breadth of
experience.

The most productive and effective person I know, a computer engineer,
typically starts working before I'm even awake. The premise of the article is
that 4 a.m. is both outside most of society's normal waking period AND it's
immediately after you've had a solid night's sleep, while 12-2 isn't really
such an unusual time to be awake _and_ , for most people, it comes at the
_end_ of the day.

As someone who woke up at 5 a.m. for many summers so I could start work on the
farm before dawn, I know that you can definitely accomplish a lot of work
before most people even roll into the office, but I also know that sleeping in
is incredibly satisfying :)

~~~
Hydraulix989
Wait, you're literally arguing that the "culturally-assigned norm" is working
late and sleeping late, instead of vice-versa, Benjamin Franklin's "early to
rise, makes a [person] wise" from America's agricultural roots that birthed
the normed 9 AM start time for the salaryman for centuries?!

In high school, I had to wake up at 6 AM every day; you can imagine I was
tired as hell -- and it's because of my biological chronotype (I am
genetically from a family of night owls -- late risers). It had nothing to do
with culture, other than the fact that I was forced against my will to go
against what my body was telling me was healthy (sleep at 6 AM and awake at
midnight).

Modern science has JUST caught up and realized that chronotypes are a thing,
but culture has definitely not (despite the "late start" school movements for
adolescents, whose biologically clocks are even FURTHER ahead than us).

~~~
tachyonbeam
I thought about this a while back, and it occurred to me that if you had a
tribe of primitive humans, it would actually be advantageous if not everyone
had the same biological clock. It might be useful to have a few people usually
awake at night, guarding the camp, instead of everyone passing out quickly
after sunset.

------
neya
In the context of this article, I recommend my fellow HN community members to
read a wonderful book on the same topic:

[https://www.amazon.com/Miracle-Morning-Not-So-Obvious-
Guaran...](https://www.amazon.com/Miracle-Morning-Not-So-Obvious-Guaranteed-
Transform/dp/0979019710/) (NOT a referral link)

Before, here's me trying to plan something, usually stuck on a petty issue,
that is dependent on something else, and this task would be put aside for so
long. My body is used to talking to clients late night and waking up late. The
only thing I became in this process is tired, obese and lost self-confidence
(though personal, I am willing to share this openly).

Once I started practicing waking up early on, I realized everything is very
clear. My mind knows exactly what to be done and if there's a problem, how I
can solve it efficiently. I could easily grasp new concepts, plan for my
future more clearly and efficiently get tasks done.

I use a pomodoro timer and I noticed that tasks that would take 2 hours in the
night would take just 45 minutes or less early in the morning. At least for
me, it just feels like my brain has access to all the information it needs so
quickly. Combining this with another book "30 days of discipline by Victor
Pride" I was able to reduce my body weight, finish an Saas prototype and
finally live a structured life and gain back my confidence.

Posting this hoping it will benefit someone. Cheers.

~~~
Hydraulix989
Our point that you're missing is: yes, people can train themselves to shift
their sleep +/\- a few hours, but people are biologically wired to have
certain "chronotypes" that you cannot "will" yourself into defying.

I woke up at 6 AM for six years, and I never "adjusted." I don't feel well-
rested unless I sleep until 10 AM.

------
nostrademons
Here I thought I'd be getting some validation for being a night owl.

4 AM is _my_ most productive hour. It's just that I haven't gone to bed yet
then. What's this "up before the sun rises" stuff? It's productive because the
day is just coming to a close.

~~~
mwfunk
Same here. I assumed the article would be about someone who discovered the
joys of being a night owl. I tend to head to bed around 1 or 2am, but if other
life constraints allowed me to stay up later I almost certainly would.

Once when I was in my early 20s I had a magical period of 2-3 months where
there was no work, no school, and not really even social or family
obligations. I would go bed when I was tired and wake up when I woke up. What
I found was that every night I stayed up about an hour later than the night
before. After 24 days my sleeping cycle went lapped the clock. At the time I
interpreted it as, biologically I had a 25 hour cycle. No idea if that was
true or not. Probably not. Regardless, if left to my own devices I always tend
to stay up into the wee hours.

If there's an opposite of a morning person, I'm it. My entire life, I've felt
completely wrecked after waking up, and it takes up to an hour to feel awake
and alert. I get progressively more productive until it's time to go to bed
again. Apparently it's the other way around for most people.

~~~
nostrademons
Very likely true. There've been a few cave studies where they shield the
experimental subjects from all natural light, and then time how long their
"biological" day is. It usually ranges from about 23.5 hours to around 28,
with an average of about 25. It varies significantly by person, but was not at
all unusual for someone's cycle to be longer than 24 hours.

(Personally, my natural sleep cycle seems to be about 25-26 hours; I'll
usually go to bed 1-2 hours later each night until I reset at some point.)

~~~
cfallin
I wonder if there's some control-theory reason why one's unsynchronized
circadian rhythm is on average slightly longer than a day? Intuitively it
seems that one might actually have more consistent synchronization with the
solar cycle if upward pressure from a natural setpoint is balanced by downward
pressure from end-of-day environmental signals (light levels, etc). Or in
other words, the body has evolved a slight margin to allow for adjustability
"in the field" via feedback loops.

But that's just a guess and I can't seem to find anything in a quick search...
anyone know more about this?

~~~
cortesoft
There is also the fact that in most places in the world, the length of the
daytime hours change over the course of a year.

------
jameslk
I'm one of those unlucky types that have the hardest time waking up and
getting going in the morning. Mentally I'm at 50% or less. Is there anyone
else like this who's found techniques or other methods of overcoming the slow
start?

~~~
monknomo
I used to be like you, then I had a baby.

Now I go to bed at 8 and get up between 4 and 5.

A little human screaming and kicking you in the balls every morning is a power
incentive to get up and do stuff.

Turns out it isn't even that bad. I get to play with the kid, I give him a
bath and have some breakfast, and get some reading in when he has his first
morning nap, then off to work. Going to bed at 7:30 or 8 seems to be key,
though

~~~
cortesoft
I was thinking all these people talking about their night owl schedules and
sleeping whenever they were tired clearly don't have kids.

When you HAVE to get up early, you start getting tired more early, too.

I had a similar experience, where I used to hate the mornings, but now love
the bonding time with my daughter.

------
jff
Only tangentially related, while I don't like _having_ to wake up at 4, being
out and about in town at 4 a.m. is a pretty enjoyable experience, especially
on say a Sunday morning. I love driving through foggy streets as dawn is just
starting to break, and the only other people around are gas station attendants
and the occasional extra-early rising farmer.

~~~
Broken_Hippo
There is a certain appeal to being out and about at that time - that appeal
starts around 2am and ends about 5-6am. I miss 24hour restaurants for that
reason, and used to rather enjoy super-early morning "breakfasts" as dinners.
Nice and peaceful.

But not enough to get me to wake at those times, as I wouldn't enjoy it in the
same way.

------
libeclipse
There was a nice Ted talk on 4AM.

[https://www.ted.com/talks/rives_a_museum_of_4_o_clock_in_the...](https://www.ted.com/talks/rives_a_museum_of_4_o_clock_in_the_morning?language=en)

------
erikb
Unpopular opinion here. I also don't think that 4 am is special in some kind.
But I believe that getting up early increases productivity. The reason is that
in the evening I at least do less productive stuff, sometimes nothing
meaningful at all. But after I wake up I usually do my todo list. So focussing
a longer part of the day on the morning hours makes me spend my time more
reasonably. From my personal feeling getting up at 6am is the best. Earlier
and it feels really painful (especially getting to bed before 10pm is hard).
Later and I'm losing time.

PS: Right now I'm more on a late schedule, starting to get productive between
10 and 11 am. Trying hard to get back to a good morning routine though.

------
lanius
I expected the article to have some kind of research to back up this claim.
The anecdotal evidence presented could just as easily apply to 3 or 5 a.m.

------
shripadk
Interesting article!

The Rishi's and Yogi's in India always woke up at 4 in the morning. In the
Hindu Yogic philosophy this time period is also called the Brahma Muhurta. If
anyone is interested, you can read more about it here:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmamuhurtha](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmamuhurtha)

and

[http://hinduism.stackexchange.com/questions/537/what-is-
the-...](http://hinduism.stackexchange.com/questions/537/what-is-the-
significance-of-brahmamuhurtha)

~~~
sixmillionmore
I HATE INDIANS FUCK YOU

~~~
shripadk
You created an account just to post this asinine comment? How jobless can one
be!

------
nsomaru
There is an interesting correlation here with some ancient wisdom:

Most schools of Indian philosophy borrow the term `guna` -- literally
"quality" but in context[0] meaning "mental texture" to refer to three main
states of mind:

Sattva: equanimity, poise, contemplativeness, objectivity

Rajas: frenzy, agitation, result-orientation

Tamas: indolence, lethargy, sloth, sleep

It's interesting to note that Brahma Murta[1] falls between 4am-6am and is
indicated as the predominance of sattva[2]. The predominance of other gunas
may be observed by looking at the nature of activities during other times
(6am-6pm = rajas), (6pm - 4am = tamas).

Those interested in further reading might consult the Vedanta Treatise[2] by A
Parthasarathy.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gu%E1%B9%87a#Samkhya_school_of...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gu%E1%B9%87a#Samkhya_school_of_Hinduism)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmamuhurtha](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmamuhurtha)

[2] [https://www.amazon.com/Vedanta-Treatise-Eternities-
Parthasar...](https://www.amazon.com/Vedanta-Treatise-Eternities-
Parthasarathy-ebook/dp/B00I8D4ZFM)

------
kstenerud
Sounds like more cargo culting to me. Oh look, CEO XYZ does it, maybe if I do
it, I'll be as successful as him!

------
mathattack
I'm very much in the early morning camp too. Most days I'm up at 3 or 4 to get
through personal items, at the gym (a short walk) by 5, and am home and ready
to cook breakfast for the family by 6:30. Getting up early is the only way to
clear the deck for things I need to do.

This has come at a cost.

\- I need to get 6 hours sleep, so a 3-4am wakeup requires a 9-10pm bedtime.
If I don't plan for this, the worst thing happens, which is 2 hours of alarms
as I don't get out of bed until 7.

\- I can't survive after a drinking binge. No more than 2 or 3 drinks the
night before, and ideally 0.

\- It doesn't always jive with family who are night owls.

This isn't how I lived in my 20s, but it works for me now. In my 20s there was
still a decent chance of good things happening at 1am. Now there is rarely
anything that happens from 10pm to 1am that I miss. :-)

------
EdSharkey
I just happened to do this last night because I was exhausted from overwork
and passed out the night before at 8. I woke up about an hour before sunrise.

In the quiet and still of the morning, tucked into a muffled corner of my
couch, with hot coffee and cream at-hand, I set about a detailed refactoring
of my home project that I had been planning.

Once I got in my groove, I found I was starting medium-sized tasks that I
would normally hesitate to start because I couldn't get them done in one
sitting. Not only was I completing these tasks quickly, but I was making
mental leaps that turned out to be correct in-hindsight once the refactoring
was done.

I'm normally overworked and have much less energy to develop to my home
project. It is pleasant to develop code on a full mental tank of gas,
especially when it's my IP.

------
dominotw
looks like only 15% of american adults are awake at 4 am. ppl like to sleep
in!

[http://flowingdata.com/2015/12/15/a-day-in-the-life-of-
ameri...](http://flowingdata.com/2015/12/15/a-day-in-the-life-of-americans/)

~~~
jobu
Which is precisely why it's easy to be productive at that time in the morning
- fewer people around mean fewer distractions.

From the article: _By waking up at 4 a.m., they’ve essentially wiped a lot of
those distractions off their plate. No one is expecting you to email or answer
the phone at 4 a.m._

~~~
dominotw
unfortunately for me, all my distractions come from within my own mind :\

------
readhn
Research shows that on average people are most productive and focused early
morning. Get your creative things done first, get most important stuff done
first in the morning. Leave meetings and routine where you don't need to think
much for the afternoon.

~~~
wott
Yeah, _if_ you are average.

------
j45
Use of the early morning hours as the most focused and effective are nothing
new for night owls.

What makes the 4 am wake up really special is when you go to bed at 8-9 PM and
get twice as much done in the middle of the night as you would when pulling an
all nighter.

Being a life long night owl who has become an early(ier) morning guy...
imagine your best all nighter ever, with double or triple the productivity due
to having your full force of energy to solve problems with zero interruptions.

The only trade off, like a lot of things is that there is some things you
can't do as a result like have late nights too often.

------
tlrobinson
Well, not if I've stayed up all night to get there...

------
tn13
That is ancient Hindu knowledge too. It is called Bramha-Muhurta. I remember
as a child my parents use to wake me up at 4 am to study.

------
Hydraulix989
I need to write a book to start fighting the cultural over-current:

"How To 10x Your Productivity By Staying Up Later and Waking Up Later"

------
jbb555
This might work for me, except that I want to spend some of my day with my
partner and she wouldn't do this. So I can't

------
mtrn
Adalbert Stifter once said: The work of a poet is done before the first tram
passes by.

------
bjd2385
Funny, I'm reading this at 4am.

------
johansch
Who the heck gets productive within 1-2 hours of waking up?

Sure, those hours are great for ingesting what has happened since the last
cycle but not really for creating new value.

Edit: I just realized I wrote this the wrong way. What I meant was that I
can't imagine people being productive _during_ the first 1-2 hours after
waking up.

~~~
oftenwrong
It depends how quickly you get through the morning routine doesn't it? For
example: If you work from home, you have no commute, you don't need to get
dressed, etc. Roll out of bed, slug down some soylent, do some jumping jacks
to get the body warmed up, and start catching up on yesterday. With that
minimal morning routine, you could easily be in the zone within 1-2 hours.

~~~
johansch
See my edit please.

------
douche
I love those early morning hours. Getting up a 4 am, I can walk the dog, go to
the gym, play in my garden, read a few chapters, make breakfast, and catch up
on the news before the rest of the world even starts.

Even better on the days I don't have to come into the office, since I can
start work at 7:30 or 8 and get most of a day's productivity in before the
deluge of emails and meetings hit, rather than spending the better part of an
hour hating everything on the commute in.

------
znpy
The article is paywalled.

~~~
taylorwc
Pro tip: click the "web" link below the article title. It will take you to a
Google search for the article, whose link circumvents the paywall.

~~~
jgdx
It doesn't work for me, link in result still paywalled.

~~~
pluma
Make sure your browser sends a Referer header?

~~~
johansch
And maybe right-click the link and select "Open link in incognito window" to
make sure the site doesn't know if you've visited them before or not.

~~~
rhizome
and put these lines in your /etc/hosts...

------
bbcbasic
4 am is a different beast depending on where in the world you are and the
season.

------
throwaway991199
Wow, remind me not to hire you for a job then.

As an employer I am paying you to put my work ahead of yours.

I am paying you to be productive so that with the collective production of the
employees, the company can outmaneuver the competition.

This lackadaisical approach and work-ethic means that, of course the mile high
task list will always be there. It'll never ever get done!

~~~
brightball
If you believe you are hiring him for that reason, then I see why you felt the
need to use a throwaway.

You're buying his time and experience for agreed upon hours. You don't have
the ability to make him put your work ahead of his anymore than you have the
ability to make him put your work ahead of his family, personal life,
education or retirement savings.

In discussions like this I tend to fall on sympathizing with employers because
until you've taken the risk, hired and managed people you don't fully
appreciate just how hard it is or how difficult it is to keep people happy.

What you're describing is closer to buying his life - which would be an
understandable arrangement from a business partner but not an everyday
employee.

~~~
randyrand
Of course, you're forgetting the most important part!

People get paid for all sorts of reasons. If you are being paid specifically
to put work in front of your hobbies, then _that_ is your job! Think database
uptime employees who are paid to get up in the middle of the night to fix a
bug, etc. Heck, I even paid a friend to eat a shoe once; you can pay people to
do all sorts of things. Paying someone to put work in front of hobbies is
hardly novel or extreme.

Of course, this should be clear in the job description!!

~~~
praptak
_" If you are being paid specifically to put work in front of your hobbies"_

...then it is most probably illegal in quite a lot of countries. Labor codes
exist for a good reason. Most people are a) employees b) not willing to put
life ahead of work and c) not willing to be forced to by competition from
desperate/workaholic co-workers.

Database uptime employees work shifts, so even they should not be forced to
put life before work.

~~~
randyrand
I suspect you are wrong about legality, but lets put that aside.

Do you think it's reasonable to expect a CEO to put work in front of hobbies?

~~~
johnnyhillbilly
Not as a goal in itself, no. In the case of real priorities, yes. In the case
of apparent priorities, no.

Nevertheless, how numerous are CEOs compared to other employees?

