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Researchers Discover The Most Creative Time of DayComments:154
Posted by
samzenpus
on Mon Oct 20, 2008 03:33 PM
from the ask-me-that-in-a-few-hours dept.
from the ask-me-that-in-a-few-hours dept.
Creativity is least likely to strike in the afternoon, according to a survey that suggests office workers have little chance of solving problems after lunch. A poll of 1,426 people showed that a quarter of us stay up late when seeking inspiration. Taking a shower or just sitting in the bathroom proved to be a popular way of getting the creative juices flowing. The survey found that 10:04pm was the most creative time, while 4:33pm was the least. I'll think of something funny to write here later.
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World of Warcraft Time!!! (Score:5, Funny)
FUCK IT. I'm going home!!!!
(And I'm only working between 10pm and 1am from now on!)
Because I'll be more productive, I can get away with only working for 3 hours.
My new World of Warcraft schedule will be as follows:
8am-1pm (World PvP & farming)
2pm-9:59pm (BG premades & Arenas)
With WotLK I won't need to worry about stupid 25man raid times ...which are such a waste of time anyway -- for all my efforts in T6 content I get to replace it all in 3 weeks! x.x
Wait a minute... it's 4:30pm and I just thought of this brave new strategy. OH SH-
Re:World of Warcraft Time!!! (Score:5, Funny)
(And I'm only working between 10pm and 1am from now on!)
Because I'll be more productive, I can get away with only working for 3 hours.
Lunch time!!! Cya.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
My most productive time is immediately after I wake-up. It lasts until lunch and then peters-out.
Re: (Score:2)
Sarah? Is that you, you're not making any sense.
AGAIN!
My Take (Score:5, Interesting)
Honestly, the most creative times I've experienced have been driving, both with and without passengers, on trips in the two to five hour range. I live in NE Montana, and there are plenty of such trips that offer few distractions (other traffic, road signs or lights, other roads.)
Sometimes I talk to my passengers; sometimes to myself. I go over the subject matter this way and that, and I try to use metaphors to gently prod myself into seeing other angles (by pushing the metaphors until they either break, register completely, or actually show me something.)
My sweetheart, who is both brilliant and kind enough to let me talk technically at her for considerable lengths of time, assists by letting me go through this process:
I'll pick something that either simply seems to need work or is an actual problem, and I'll explain to her exactly how I see the issue at the moment, complete with explanations of why I don't do this, or why I did that. Sometimes - not always by any means, but a reasonable number of times - I run down into a splutter, asking myself... "Why? Why did I do that? Uh... " or "man, that sure could have been done better..."
Which is followed by pulling over and making a note for later. :-)
The thing is, she's not technical (in my field) so I have to explain everything, pretty much. Metaphors help a lot too. But because she's actually paying attention, there's no getting away with hand-waving. I find that many times, inspiration lurks in areas I've discarded as no longer worthy of much (if any) attention. This process forces the issue.
Time of day doesn't seem to matter in my case. Coffee, however, is definitely involved.
We do this for management of our businesses as well; we have a couple retail operations, a software store, a lingerie store (stockings, mostly), a martial arts studio and a portrait photo business, plus I do some consulting here and there. We do a lot of juggling, and it helps to rattle ideas around in an unstructured environment. With the cell phones off!!!
å
Re:My Take (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed, talking to a human is much better than "talking to the [teddy] bear" as it is called here in that a human pays attention. And talking to a human that doesn't know the subject has its own benefits, as Douglas Adams pointed out:
BTW, I wouldn't suggest you compare your sweetheart to a very slow, dim-witted pupil. Certainly not to her face.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:My Take (Score:4, Insightful)
That's the equivalent of what I've heard called (and which I call) "Rubber Dummy Syndrome." You need to solve a problem. You've been wracking your brains on it for hours. In desperation, you go and get help on it, so you start to describe the problem to a colleague. About half way through describing the problem, you stop, say "never mind," and realise that you've solved it. The person you're talking to never need say a word. It's the act of DESCRIBING the problem that finally gives you the solutions.
As for the best time of the day to think? For me, either 8am or 10pm. Or in the toilet, or making a hot drink in the kitchen. Occasionally I've been trying to solve some problem, and my boss said to me "Go and make a cuppa, looks like you need to think." And damned if it didn't usually work :)
Re:My Take (Score:4, Insightful)
while i don't have a "sweetheart"--not anymore at least, i can empathize with the teaching analogy.
i used to tutor struggling students after-school at my school library. and even though i'd learned most of the material i went over with them long ago, teaching it to them helped me gain a much stronger grasp of these concepts.
most poor students aren't stupid. some lack discipline or are lazy, and some just learn differently from others. the students that came to me for help were obviously motivated to learn and not lazy. but they needed help understanding certain concepts that just weren't getting through the way the teacher tried to explain it to them.
this experience taught me to analyze a problem from many different perspectives. i would experiment with different analogies and gauge how the pupil responded to it, adjusting my teaching methods accordingly. not only did i help most pupils to walk away confident in their academic abilities, but i also learned to take unconventional approaches to difficult problems and analyze the subtle connections between different concepts and ideas.
this approach proved invaluable in elucidating difficult concepts to struggling pupils, but it has also taught me to be more elastic in my own thought process, helping me solve many challenging problems.
so teaching others is definitely one of the best ways to learn. just as helping others is the best way to help yourself.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
BTW, I wouldn't suggest you compare your sweetheart to a very slow, dim-witted pupil. Certainly not to her face.
He's got multiple businesses. She would stay with him for the money :-)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Each day, I bike 14 kilometers to work and 9 miles back. This is a great time for planning and evaluating the day. On a bike you are active and awake because of the wind and the required exercise. On my bike I think about programming strategies, past and future social interactions, planning my commercial/proprietary and Free software activities or the odd real-life subject. When I get to work I change my shirt and answer my email; the routine kicks in. During the day I'll have lulls in motivation for the bo
Re: Distances (Score:3, Funny)
Nah, you fell for the tactical cheapo.
He bikes in Euro Metric on the way over and Old English Standard on the way back. The online converter claims 0.5ish km vanished somewhere, so maybe Mrs. Gribblewhimple yelled at him to Get Off Her Lawn (TM) on his way home.
routine numbs the soul (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:routine numbs the soul (Score:5, Interesting)
Currently I'm depressed, so I'm sure my post could have been much more creative and charismatic had I posted it a few months ago
Re:routine numbs the soul (Score:4, Funny)
And did it drive you stark-raving mad [xkcd.com]?
Ah, it appears you have anticipated my question. Well done.
(I am considering trying this. There's just a matter of certain regular meetings, occasional free lunches on Thursdays to consider, and the usual holidays, and a benefit is that the off-peak work times mean more opportunities to do coding that would otherwise disrupt all the other programmers.)
Re: (Score:2)
If you ever get a couple months off work/school for any reason, try
Being a night person, I "fall" into a nocturnal schedule. But even when I am working a usual 8AM to 6PM (9 to 5 is a myth) schedule, I function better and am more creative the later in the day. Heck, I can get as little as 4 hour sleep, get to work by 8AM and still be wide awake and at a high level of mental function at 10PM (or later).
Re:routine numbs the soul (Score:4, Funny)
I keep hearing about this 'boring life' that people are talking about, and I have to say, I'd like to try it.
I'm stuck in an interesting life. I didn't realize this until recently, but apparently, not everyone was kidnapped as a child, or had a roommate who tried to kill them, or were accidentally mistaken for a terrorist and caused a bomb-scare. I had no idea that boring was even an option!
Man, I had more but (I can't believe I'm saying this) the house is filling with smoke. There may be a fire.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
It wasn't a fire. Or, it wasn't an uncontained fire.
One of my roommates was microwaving a burrito, set the time too high, got a phone call and left to go to the store. Forgetting the burrito.
The house stinks of smoke, the microwave may be toast, and it's getting cold with all these windows open. At least the smoke detectors have stopped going off.
I really, really, REALLY wish I were joking. :-(
Thanks for the help! (Score:2)
I'm going to forward this article to my boss and go home early, awesome thanks!! Who says I can't be creative in the afternoon?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
If you show this article to your boss, he will force you to work until 10:04 pm, and beyond.
Yuck (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
4:20 (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not sure about that. I'll bet there are a lot of people trying to come up with a creative way to go home early after 4PM.
Siesta (Score:4, Interesting)
Some cultures have figured out the low point and adjusted their whole day around it. My biological clock agrees. I find my energy levels and creativity at their lowest sometime between 2-4pm. It is almost a depression. Best to nap through it.
I peak emotionally and creatively at dusk. Something about the night coming on just starts it. I stay this way until I go to sleep. Best time for coding, thinking something out, or just plain enjoying music, movies or reading. You do must make it a point of stopping at a reasonable time, as your whole next day is wrecked without a solid nights sleep.
Research: Uncyclopedia worker interruptions costly (Score:5, Interesting)
YOUR DESK, Your office (Work) -- The chances of you finishing writing this article without getting interrupted or distracted are slim.
U.S. office workers get interrupted on the job as often as eleven times per hour, costing as much as $588 billion in paid time lost to open content production each year. The digital communications that were supposed to make working lives run smoothly -- cc'ed email jokes, Internet porn and chatting up that hottie in the next office by IM -- are actually preventing people from getting critical tasks like writing Uncyclopedia or Wikipedia accomplished.
The typical office worker is interrupted every three minutes by a phone call, e-mail, instant message or other distraction. These take up 2.1 hours of the average day -- 28 percent -- with workers taking an average of five minutes to recover from each interruption and return to their original gag-writing or witty picture editing, or querulous talk page arguments and arbitration cases about the correct format for subheadings on articles about disused former US highways. The problem is that it takes about eight uninterrupted minutes for our brains to get into a really creative state.
From online shopping at work to planning the office holiday party, workers are bombarded with distractions. "It's certainly a recipe for even less writing getting done," said a typically bone-idle and parasitical Uncyclopedia timewaster. "It's 'There's my BlackBerry. What time is it in Kittenhoeffer right now? How many phone calls did I get? Can I win the sales office spider solitaire competition?' It's a lot of productive timewasting turned to useless 'productivity.' People like the convenience and possibilities that this technology affords them when they want to use it, but that doesn't increase the average quality of Wikipedia or pump up the funneh on Uncyc!"
Still another study found a group of workers interrupted by e-mail and telephones scored lower on an IQ test than a test group that had smoked marijuana. Unfortunately, EPA regulations still forbid bong hits at one's desk, even when trying to fix one's makefile.
There is a mini rebellion under way, however. Desperate for some quiet time to think, people are coming up with low-tech strategies to get away from all their technology. "If you don't have that sort of free time to dream and muse and mull, then you are not being creative, by definition. I find hiding in the server room with my laptop is a good place to work on witty tales of Britney Spears flashing her lunch at paparazzi."
The problem appears to be getting worse. A study by Wikia earlier this year found that 62 percent of British Uncyclopedians are addicted to their e-mail -- checking messages during meetings, after working hours and on vacation, hoping to get their funny take onto UnNews first.
"If I wanted to work," said the user, "hell. I'd get a job."
(original link [uncyclopedia.org])
that old saying (Score:5, Funny)
Early to bed and early to rise makes Jack miss out on his peak creativity period.
Re:that old saying (Score:4, Funny)
I am Jack's stunning lack of peak creativity.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I find this article to be concurrent with my own observations. Your statement further reflects upon my circumstances. I often find that I face the choice between getting sufficient sleep (which increases my productivity at work) and utilizing the creative burst that I get between 10:00 p.m. and midnight. I envy everybody who boasts of hours flexible enough to accommodate even a little bit of variance. I work in inside sales, so my job consists of answering phones from 7:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. According t
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
He did stay up later, thinking up quotes that made everyone else miss their peak creative hours, which left him as the wisest man of his times.
He also exhorted everyone to get drunk on beer. While selling beer and staying up late etc. etc.
Ahead of his time in the sophistry department, that guy was.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Benjamin Franklin is known to have drank opium tinctures recreationally.
opiates are a very popular drug amongst creatives--especially writers. so there must be some sort of connection there.
contrary to common misconception, not all opiate users are dirtly homeless junkies. many doctors are closet morphine junkies. there are the type who like to get so high they puke or pass out (or both). and then there are those who use just enough to feel calm, relaxed, but not enough to become inebriated. personally, i'v
No Kidding (Score:4, Insightful)
Quite likely it's due to the chance to decompress a bit that creativity occurs outside of normal hours. It's really hard to focus and think up anything actually creative when the PHBs are bugging the hell out of you, or the phone is ringing with someone panicing about what is usually a non-issue.
It's why great authors often are almost recluses while working on a book.
Stress, meetings, coworkers, etc. do more to kill creativity than anything else.
Creativity requires being relaxed and focused on the actual problem to be solved. Normal office life is the exact opposite of that environment.
Uptime and downtime (Score:4, Interesting)
I agree that creativity pours out mostly when I'm alone and undistracted. But I find that if I schedule too much time alone then I become somewhat lethargic and uninspired.
A couple seminars per week, some social time, and a little busywork to get me into a productive state of mind actually helps stimulate creativity in the remaining downtime.
Makes sense (Score:4, Funny)
Isn't 10:04 about when the effects of that third shot of scotch is starting to kick in.
Oblig (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Shots? Of scotch?
You're definitely doing it wrong.
Wait, showering is the answer? (Score:2)
Damn, that explains why I never get any good ideas/dates!
While this is in absolute terms... (Score:5, Interesting)
I actually feel the most creative around the 3-4PM area (which would be equivalent to most people's 10AM whereas around 7 or 8PM I start dragging serious amounts of creative ass unless I'm highly caffeinated.
I'm not saying that me alone shows this is relational to the time you normally wake up, but it would be interesting to find that out also.
Re: (Score:3)
Legend has it that Leonardo da Vinci kept a very unusual sleep cycle; he would sleep in short amounts, but several times per day.
Interestingly, if you Google "leonardo da vinci sleep" [google.ca] the first result you get is an article on this concept: Polyphasic Sleep [wikipedia.org], which doesn't mention Leonardo anywhere. Apparently enough pages mentioning Leonardo link to that article to that it ranks #1, without even mentioning him itself.
Doesn't this depend on your schedule? (Score:4, Interesting)
I go to bed somewhere between 9:30 and 10:00 pm. After about 9 PM I'm generally too tired to do anything but watch TV, and even that usually puts me to sleep.
But I get up around 5 AM and my most productive time seems to be between about 6 AM and about 10 AM. I feel the most alert and productive then, possibly because I'm enjoying the benefits of sleep + coffee (without being overcaffeinated or relying on it for energy) and I'm not "bogged down" psychologically by all of the bullshit and stress accumulated during the course of the day.
Now that I'm fully entering old farthood (41), I'm guessing the study conclusions must be biased towards the under-30 set, since most people I know in my age/lifestyle category (over 40 with kids) are largely in my same situation with regard to being dead by about 10 PM, although most don't seem to be up at 5.
...while 4:33pm was the least (Score:2)
Posted @04:33PM. Indeed.
You already did think of something funny to say... (Score:3, Funny)
"...sitting in the bathroom proved to be a popular way of getting the creative juices flowing."
You can't make shit like that up. It's priceless.
4:20 (Score:2)
Remove stimuli (Score:5, Interesting)
This may or may not work for other people, but I too find that my most creative moments are in the shower... because there's no new stimuli there. The rest of the time, I'm usually getting information from somewhere: listening to the radio in the car, watching TV while I wash the dishes, etc. Those 15-25 minutes I'm in the shower, nothing else is happening and my mind wanders. That's when ideas form and it's quiet enough in there for them to be heard.
Survey said ... (Score:3, Insightful)
My employees used to joke that the company would make more money if we had a shower installed in my office. I claimed I would end up looking like a prune, but was told that that might also be an improvement.
Style Sheets? (Score:2)
So, is 4:33 PM also the time of day that you corrupt your site's style sheets?
Yeah, mark it as troll, I don't care, its 4:58 PM.
Similar thread in the replies (Score:2)
It seems like a lot of the replies all seem to acknowledge that the flashes of inspiration come when we're not directly involved with whatever the task at hand happens to be. Often times I find it helpful to get up and go for a walk. There seems to be something about shifting from actually working directly on the issue, to stepping away from it while still being able to ponder it. The brain seems to shift out of actively doing mode and into pondering how else to do it mode.
Mine is 1-2 a.m. (Score:4, Interesting)
Staying up past your bedtime is a mentally liberating thing.
There is probably some serotonin-related brain chemistry; maybe also you're a few hours farther away from the blood-sucking, chemically disruptive digestive process than at other times of the day; but mostly I think it's just that if you know you're "up late" you're working on free time, and not during the times of day that are otherwise owed to the things you haven't gotten done already.
You put aside your 16-hours-a-day budget and use the free time to reach beyond your to-do list.
Also, it's possible the situation is conditioned. Finding something creative to do at bedtime lets you stay up late, which is and always has been a reward, even if you really want to get some sleep because you have something scheduled for the morning.
Re: (Score:2)
"If it weren't for the last minute, I'd never get anything done." -Unknown