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What Is The Morning Writing Effect?

gwern.net

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Re: What Is The Morning Writing Effect?

#51

Post by vorpalhex »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #44
lordnacho wrote: post #42

I buy the third explanation, that sleep is key. How often do you find yourself thinking about code in your sleep? A lot, right? And then when you wake up somehow you have some clarity about the problem to hand. Once you've mucked around a bit and found the solution, cleaned it up, written some unit tests, and documented it, you're a bit tired. And the next problem is starting to form without being entirely clear.

> A lot, right? Can't say I've ever thought about code in my sleep. Is that a common thing among coders?

I've solved many difficult problems sleeping or showering.

Re: What Is The Morning Writing Effect?

#52

Post by HenryBemis »

chrisweekly wrote: post #25
weehobbes wrote: post #21

Few thoughts: For me personally, I experience a lot of ego depletion during the day. But having kids tends to do that. There's no way I can write at the end of the day, I'm just way to mentally tired. Also as someone who both codes and writes, writing is far more emotionally taxing. Coding is problem solving - there is usually a clear path to follow and I generally know when I've solved a problem. Writing for me is u…

I'm reading a terrific book -- "When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing"[1] -- that reviews the literature on this exact topic. Recommended. 1. http://a.co/hY8eixX

A book that I have read and has changed my life is: "What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast" by Laura Vanderkam. This book changed my "overtime work" from being a night-owl, fighting for efficiency, to early bird (catching the worm) in just a few days.

The aforementioned book in combination with "The art of not giving a f..." by Mark Mason, and the "The 4-Hour Workweek" by Timothy Ferris made me change my working habits to the better/more productive.

I now spend more time on journaling on my ideas/results, and find myself being more focused. I guess that journaling is "some kind of writing" (I am not a writer), but it helps that when I write and immediately read something (a paragraph, numbers, rough pen-and-paper diagrams,bell-shaped-curves/sweet spots).

I suggested the "What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast" book to (former) fellow night-owls to switch their 10pm-2am routine to a 6am-10am. Most who actually tried it are enjoying the benefits. I do understand that this depends also on other factors (health, workouts, driving kids to school, daily commute, walking the dog, morning workouts) but a balance can be achieved so that one can fit a 3-hour-work without impacting other functions.

Re: What Is The Morning Writing Effect?

#53

Post by pcurve »

wowamit wrote: post #24

Anecdotally speaking, I tend to write well late in the nights -- when everyone's gone to sleep. I tend to focus well, think throughout the evenings. I think it also depends on the most distracting-free time. For me, it is late night. Can it also be about geography? I am not sure if there is a correlation between the region an author belongs to and his writing habits. I couldn't find any reference in shared article.

I'm a night owl so I tend to get more things done at night. However, when I wake up in morning, I can actually physically feel my brain focused and clear.

Unfortunately once I get to work, that feeling is all gone as the brain tries to adjust to world of constant context switching between meetings, projects, and people.

Re: What Is The Morning Writing Effect?

#54

Post by Jill_the_Pill »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #44
lordnacho wrote: post #42

I buy the third explanation, that sleep is key. How often do you find yourself thinking about code in your sleep? A lot, right? And then when you wake up somehow you have some clarity about the problem to hand. Once you've mucked around a bit and found the solution, cleaned it up, written some unit tests, and documented it, you're a bit tired. And the next problem is starting to form without being entirely clear.

> A lot, right? Can't say I've ever thought about code in my sleep. Is that a common thing among coders?

I wake up with answers. My first waking thought is often a solution or something I failed to notice.

Re: What Is The Morning Writing Effect?

#55

Post by Jill_the_Pill »

evincarofautumn wrote: post #45
ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A lot, right? Can't say I've ever thought about code in my sleep. Is that a common thing among coders?

I sometimes dream about being & moving amongst the abstract structures that I build in my head when reasoning about a complex problem. Sometimes it gives me an insight; others, it’s meaningless, the Tetris effect in another form.

Sometimes that is really poor-quality sleep, when your brain is gnawing on a complex problem.

Re: What Is The Morning Writing Effect?

#56

Post by mgalka »

sqs wrote: post #3

My first question was about how writing prose differs from writing code. The post covers this: > despite being apparently similar activities (both mostly involve slinging text), the temporal timing of software development & writing are strikingly different. Thinking back, I don’t recall early-morning programming being a trend among programmers (programmers are infamous for preferring to come in late and late-night pr…

I do a lot of both writing and coding and I also follow this schedule. I find coding at night to be very efficient, but when I try to write at night, I end up rewriting the same paragraph 10 times before giving up.

No idea why these activities are so different, but I feel the thought process is very different. Coding requires active concentration. I find writing to be more of a passive activity. Too much concentration, and the words stop making sense -- something like this effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_satiation

Re: What Is The Morning Writing Effect?

#57

Post by fouc »

I'd be curious if there's any correlation between morning/night work and introversion/extroversion. For some reason I imagine extroverted people would be more likely to work at night than morning.

Re: What Is The Morning Writing Effect?

#58

Post by jason_slack »

ascom wrote: post #49
jason_slack wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B072Q985YX?ref_=k4w_ss_details_rh

I still have no idea where this link is going to take me. a.co links always go to some illegible Amazon URL, so I think it’s fine to use them.

I guess, but...

1. You can see it is Amazon

2. If you click it and are expecting "product A" and instead you see "product xxx" you probably won't proceed further.

3. This is Amazons fault, not those that have posted short URL's. There simple is't a longer URL that says: http:// amazon.com/this-is-the-product-you-were-after-just-in-case-you-are-skeptical-of-a-short-url-given-to-you-byu-someone-you-dont-know-beware-danger-will-robinson.

Re: What Is The Morning Writing Effect?

#59

Post by moonhorse »

weehobbes wrote: post #21

Few thoughts: For me personally, I experience a lot of ego depletion during the day. But having kids tends to do that. There's no way I can write at the end of the day, I'm just way to mentally tired. Also as someone who both codes and writes, writing is far more emotionally taxing. Coding is problem solving - there is usually a clear path to follow and I generally know when I've solved a problem. Writing for me is u…

I too find that after a 10-hour day, I can not do anything productive. My best time is morning till early afternoon. I think ego depletion definitely has some anecdotal evidence. Most of us can only do quality focused work when our mind is clear after sleep.

If you look at the data gwern provided, some of the supposedly owls actually sleep till noon, and do work immediately after waking up. That is not an "owl" in my opinion ... I too can do work at night if I spend the day wandering around. An owl is someone who could pump good work after a taxing day.

Re: What Is The Morning Writing Effect?

#60

Post by philipswood »

sqs wrote: post #3

My first question was about how writing prose differs from writing code. The post covers this: > despite being apparently similar activities (both mostly involve slinging text), the temporal timing of software development & writing are strikingly different. Thinking back, I don’t recall early-morning programming being a trend among programmers (programmers are infamous for preferring to come in late and late-night pr…

Morning coding works best for me.

Night coding also works, but tends to mess with my falling asleep and decrease the quality of my sleep. If I'm in a tight spot I find it more effective to not work later, but to sleep a bit less and start a few hours earlier.

I get most if my productive day done before everyone arrives. Then I just muddle through the day at limited capacity until either the evening or next morning.

I think there are 2 keys to this:

* I think there is contention on some mostly unconscious cognitive resources. Social processing seems to be an antagonist for deep focus for me. I focus deeper an longer when no one else is around.

* There seems to be memory/history effects in the short term. In the morning some "buffers" and "staging areas" are clear making it easy to build a good focus and flow. As the day progresses it looks like these can get scrambled.

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