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When are you most productive?

Ben Halpern on January 06, 2022

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GrahamTheDev

Mornings and evenings, I really seem to suffer from “the afternoon slump” more and more. Maybe it is time I started to take an afternoon nap? 🤣

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Pascal Thormeier

This. And in the middle of the night. Sometimes you just need to be up at 2am, listening to some amazing tunes, hacking the living hell out of that project. Funks up your sleep cycle, but yeah.

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GrahamTheDev • Edited

If you get to 2am best bet is to just keep going and go to bed at 6pm the next day - if you work like a Uni student,
then you might as well sleep like a Uni student! 💪🤣

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manu

Same!
I got migraines a few weeks ago so I sleep 1-2 hours earlier.

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Vicente G. Reyes

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Sachin N

Morning 9 AM - 11 AM and evening 5 PM - 6 PM. I've been monitoring my most productivity hours for the past three months as I'm building a new app that helps improve focus and productivity

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Vesa Piittinen • Edited

Do you want to have a comment that is way too long for a question so short? Here, have one.

You tell me "make this better" and then remove all limitations on hours and time of day on when to do it, with only expectation being that there will be delivery and that changes are communicated. No feature requests, just "better".

I'd likely be working during late afternoons, and occasionally at nights. I'd probably work less hours than I do now.

Most likely nothing immediately obvious happens. Code changes here and there. However over the long term:

  • Conversion and user happiness metrics improve
  • Team members complete their tasks quicker
  • Team spends less time on bugs

What has happened? Users are happy. Team is happy. There have only been some code changes!

Code is a language. People read it. You take the time to make it clear, remove things that don't make sense, consider what helps a developer get things done, and when there is less friction it is easier to understand each part of the underlying system the code reflects.

UI is a language. People experience it. You take the time to make it clear, remove things that don't make sense, consider what helps a user get things done, and when there is less friction it is easier to understand each part of the underlying system the UI reflects.

I also think productivity is a lie. It is a metric of accomplishing things. I rather replace it with a state of least friction, because that is what it really is. To be able to do things well you need time, well-being, and support. Accumulated skill and knowledge helps, but those are gained by the other three. If you are a curious person you will eventually become an expert in anything given enough time, well-being, and support.

Eventually "productivity" means that you don't do certain things, because you don't need to do them. Say, you can simply fix a problem immediately hitting the right thing. Or better yet, you create things so that some problems never arise. This is totally invisible "productivity". But you can't measure it, because it is something that never happens.

If you want an ultra productive team you want to have a lot of problems that never happen. Put other way, team has to make sure that they choose the right problems to have. Also, over time it makes sense there are people who work to make sure possible problems may not arise, even if this means they're not providing the short term feature accomplishment productivity.


TL:DR; I'm most productive when I change things indirectly resulting to people wasting less time cumulatively thus making everyone else "more productive".

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Oscar Ortiz

If I manage to get a workout session in the morning I’ve realized that I can focus on problem solving a lot more than from a day just going straight to the computer coding and problem solving.

Waking up the whole body seems to help out since I’m fully awake.

When having a half asleep mind and body I can’t really focus and I can tell

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Younes

During the night when the kids are sleeping and the only noise that can disturb me is my fan when i click on "Build" 😂

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Mihir Joshi

11 AM - 2 PM to start off the day, but 5 PM - 10 PM is when I have produced my best work. I take a nap in the afternoon regardless of the job requirements. I realised how resting for even 30 mins in the afternoon noticably improves my quality of work after I wake up.

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manu

Yeah, sleeping clears my thought process.
I once slept at 7 PM, and I felt really good next morning

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🚩 Atul Prajapati 🇮🇳

Early morning, after yoga asana my productivity level reach 100%

yoga time

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manu

Me during day:
https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/7vexs9tjx7jjoftcdcni.png

Me during night:
Refactored entire app, 500 commits to github

So yeah, I love to work at night, but during the day, even though I do work sometimes on my code during my first and second break (since i'm in school). Once finishing homework, I usually work until 12-2 in the morning

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Jan Küster

Morning, alone, no sound, no meetings prior or upcoming. One task in focus, deadline not immediate but also not too far away. Dev environment ist fully set up and stable since a few weeks.
Fresh coffee or tea is brewed and a small snack is available, too.
It's light outside and room temperature is at 21C

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manu

Coffee is POG :P

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Sherry Day

About 1 hour after my day starts, but before any meetings have happened. If I log on, I really can't just get to being productive at all, but the period right after I really get started is when I can get most of my work done until there is a possible break, which kicks me out of it.

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zoebourque

I'm most productive in the morning. For the past months, I've been trying to build a routine every morning to get rid of procrastination. I did this by using a task management tool to help me plan and prioritize things that I need to do. Planning my day ahead allows me to be more productive on that day. If you are wondering, tools like Todoist or Quire are great tools!

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G. Tuazon • Edited

I'm mostly productive on my days off from my healthcare job. When it comes to dev work, it's usually in the mornings and late afternoons. I take naps after lunch since I get a bit drowsy once I hop on front of my monitors.

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NIKHIL CM

For me it is not about time. If I am really interested in the work I am doing or the work is critical, I am very productive. Else most of the time I will be distracted by the notification sound, calls and random thoughts 😅

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Eelco Verbrugge

Define productive... Later in the day I would say it is easier for me to get in the deep focus, but the quality of my work gets less. So important to check my work the next morning. Great combo

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leob

Night, probably :)

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Danny Engelman

When I am not reading blogposts that don't add anything to my skillset or knowledge.

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Geoff Stevens

Typically 9am - noon. Right after coffee and before the rest of the team on the west coast wakes up!

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Lucia Cerchie • Edited

Oh gosh, 6am-9am. My energy tanks after noon.

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Madza

I would say after 10k jog, shower and healthy meal 👍
Then music on headphones to get into zone 💯

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Naya Moss

Either 6am or 3pm

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Mat Borowiak

At night, when everyone goes asleep.

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Drew Ronsman

When no one is talking to me lol

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Keff

Mornings for me. I used to enjoy working at night but as the years pass I like it less and less. My brain is drained during the day so at night I only write crapy code...

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૮༼⚆︿⚆༽つ
  1. when there is nothing todo 😃
  2. after sleep/nap/hibernate/reboot/wakeup (always put my chromebook beside my bed)
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Ashish Khare😎

Time doesn't plays a key role for me. In my case, if I'd already made a few small wins, then the upcoming hours would be my most auspicious period for work.

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Siddharth

9pm - 8am

No, I didn't switch AM and PM!

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Azlan-Syed

when i make my own softwares

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Rajvir Singh

When I am energetic for the work, or late night hours

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Brad

Earlier than later now. Later just means being more tired haha. Must be getting old!

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muhsarip

morning and mostly with drinking an ice coffee

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Ian Duffy

Evenings I'm better at problem solving - which I tend to do stuff that help in work stuff when motived, ie performance issues.

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Prabin Poudel

When I am in home 🏠

That is when I am alone and just by myself. Also the reason why most of us are hyper productive during morning and nights.

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lepinekong

Evening but it more depends on the environment.

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Harshit

Evening. When everyone is about to sign off. I get no email, no slack messages, no calls.

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Christian Melgarejo

Night owl, but leading a 9to5 normal life killed that mojo :(

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Charlie J Smotherman

0001-0600

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Marcus Zippka

Id like to work at night, when its absolutly quite and everybody sleeps.

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Matt Ellen-Tsivintzeli

Last year I think I was most productive during Advent of Code 😛

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Bharat

Late nights

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Jesse M. Holmes

5am to about 11am, though I can stretch that to 2pm if I'm hyperfocused.

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Suraj M

12 pm onwards...