Late Night PC

Not all time is created equal. I've started getting up a lot earlier lately and I've found that for me the hours from 6 am to about 10:30 can be really productive. I have a pretty easy time getting focused and if I can get myself in front of a project then I really take off and get things done. Compare that to the early afternoon from, say, 1 until 3 pm and the afternoon version of me seems to be asleep by comparison. I'm unfocused and mentally wander around looking for shiny objects. In the evening I can get plenty done in the battlegrounds on World of Warcraft but when I try to claim that time to work on my taxes I end up frustrated. I've noticed it before but never to the degree that I do now. There are different times of day that I perform better at different tasks. My empirical evidence can be tied back to better sleeping habits and being well-rested and alert in the morning but I think there's something more to it. I think there are a number of factors that make different times of day better for different tasks. Different times of day have different qualities. Some factors are internal and some are in my surroundings. I don't deal well with interruptions for most anything involving a computer. If I'm writing code or configuring software then it just takes a short conversation to put me off track. The worst part is that I often instigate those conversations. Early morning hours are generally devoid of distractions though. There are fewer background thoughts in the morning as well. Since I've been asleep I haven't got any problems on my mind except for the first one I pose. If I've had a tough bit of design question the day before then first thing in the morning I can ask it fresh and it has my whole brain to roam around in until the other distractions show up after lunch. So I like mornings now, with no distractions inside or outside and a freshly charged brain to work on. In the summertime I hope to start going for early morning bike rides again - that's a great way to get the blood flowing. By the time the evening hours come I've had a steady flow of mental work and I'm ready for a good change of subject. That's what makes it a good time for some gaming or some housework. The fact that the house is a mess by the end of the day makes it easy to find something to do that takes very little thought and gives my tired head a rest and make my body work. Tidying the kitchen or working on a construction project (ones that involve hammering are best) makes for a welcome change. Still, I often try to sit down and get a couple hours in on some nagging software-related problem but usually the results are less than stellar. The smallest mental bump in the evening is magnified into a roadblock that turns my full attention to Youtube, Fark or Slashdot. I'm still working on this theory but I have to say that I found a lot more high-quality time when I moved my waking hours from late morning to early. I had to stop drinking coffee regularly to do it because otherwise I just didn't want to go to bed by 9. Not that I couldn't, I just really didn't want to. With me, I've learned that the things I want are more powerful than the things I tell myself I need to do, so the coffee had to move from regular daily habit to weekend treat. That let me make going to bed at a healthy time something that I wanted to do and made mornings more enjoyable. Feel free to add to my theory in the comments...