Researchers Discover The Most Creative Time of Day 154
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.
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!!!
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routine numbs the soul (Score:5, Interesting)
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])
flowing water = flowing ideas (Score:1, Interesting)
Taking a shower, washing my hair, working out hard enough that the sweat is dripping off, IME facilitates creative thought flow.
My vacation was supposed to start on a Monday, but something broke on Friday and it manifested itself in my code (although ultimately the error was detected in a recently submitted change from another programmer). Late in the evening, I ran out of ideas. Fortunately, the exercise room downstairs was open 24/7. Forty minutes on a treadmill, and I lost significant water weight through my pores and gained several useful ideas for different approaches to debugging.
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
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.
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.
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.
Re:My Take (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 boring tasks during which I'll work out the ideas I had whilst biking. If it's a bad day, there's little time for that and I'm steered from meeting to meeting, answering dumb emails, chasing people for facilities and fixing bugs. On a good day, I'll have time to really get some beautiful coding done. On such a day I'll think about the code on my way home and will have more great ideas I'll work on in the evening. Depending on the mood and challenge the evening code is for 'real' work or for FOSS.
Taking a walk during/after lunch helps creativity too.
Re:that old saying (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 to both this article and my own experiences, I am getting out of work just as my creativity reaches its nadir.
On a related note, does anybody else resent how much of one's schedule is dictated by one's employer? It isn't just the time that you're at work. That dictates the time that you must/should be asleep. That affects when you'll be hungry. And now we have this article that suggests I'm sleeping through my peak creativity, giving average creativity to my employer, and hitting my low point just as my "me time" begins.
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:that old saying (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:that old saying (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've never enjoyed being visibly intoxicated or so high that i'm nauseous.
i think being physically and psychologically relaxed helps one be creative. your mind isn't cluttered with stressful thoughts, so your creativity just flows out of you more easily. it also puts you in a more introspective/ruminative mood. if caffeine is programming fluid [everything2.com], then opiates are writing supplements.
opiates have always made me feel like expressing myself artistically. it puts you in a slightly manic stage similar to small amounts of stimulants (coke/caffeine/meth/ritalin/adderall), but it doesn't have the negative effects, such as peripheral stimulation (hypertension, hyperthermia, vasoconstriction, anxiety, jitteriness), instead it has a very calming effect and doesn't cause any kind of crash afterwards.
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.