I don't really have times when I am most productive, but rather times when I am least productive (probably just splitting hairs). I found that I am least productive 1 hr before and after meal times. So 11am -- 1 pm is low productivity as is 5 pm -- 7 pm. This has a little bit to do with being hungry/full but it seems to be more a product of these being more social times of my day, i.e. I end up talking with people around those time. In any case, the result is that I find my mornings and evenings are the most productive times.

-Josh

doesnt really matter for me, though I dont get much done the hour or so after if Ive just travelled somewhere, (perhaps cause I normally bike/run & need my body to recover)

Unless you have something which can disturb you then 'productive hours' are nothing more than a learned habit and purely psycological.

I'm most productive when I decided to be and do something to adjust my brain so that it is happy to do so; this basically involves putting on some music + headphones and sitting down to do something.

This too is nothing more than an associative trick; I code listening to music, thus when I list to music I'm transported into the correct mindset to code.

The music thing also works well at work as it cuts out distractions, invokes the same mental status change and makes it less likely people will bother you with idle talk when you've got things to do.

Mostly 0930-1230 for me. If the S/N ratio is good enough I will also churn out some good effort 1500-1730. I've given up on peaking and I'm trying to improve on average performance, multitasking abilities and such.

This was a poll topic numerous time back in the day. One of the poll results was messed up but here are the other two:

From which hours do you do your best work?
When are you most alert and creative for working on projects?

Unless you have something which can disturb you then 'productive hours' are nothing more than a learned habit and purely psycological.

I can't agree with this. I'm not a morning person by any means, and regardless of how much sleep I get, I can't hold a thought for about the first 2-3 hours that I'm up. Even with caffeine, it takes awhile before my concentration is good enough that I can do anything. In the evening though, I'm wide awake and can focus, even despite distractions. Typically I can get more done from around 9 PM - midnight than 7 am-4 pm.

[quote name='phantom' timestamp='1322087938' post='4887036']
Unless you have something which can disturb you then 'productive hours' are nothing more than a learned habit and purely psycological.

I can't agree with this. I'm not a morning person by any means, and regardless of how much sleep I get, I can't hold a thought for about the first 2-3 hours that I'm up. Even with caffeine, it takes awhile before my concentration is good enough that I can do anything. In the evening though, I'm wide awake and can focus, even despite distractions. Typically I can get more done from around 9 PM - midnight than 7 am-4 pm.
[/quote]If you're going to sleep after midnight and getting up at 7am, you are sleep deprived. One long sleep won't cure chronic sleep deprivation.

I think that while you may find concentration hard in the morning, it is still a learned habit. I bet if you were in a combat zone or some emergency, you would think fast as soon as you were awake!

If it really takes 3 hours before you can hold a thought, that would worry me personally. How much sleep, how good sleep, how much coffee you drink, yada yada. It shouldn't be like that.

I notice that I am the most productive when it's past 12AM (like right now) -- meaning that my brain is starting to stay calm and think cool, and that's the time when I can do most of my productive activities. It's a bit of inconvenience as it's past bedtime. I don't want to go to sleep because I want to do more work, but I have to because I need to be up for work tomorrow morning.

Once, I created this unusual sleep cycle just so that I can stay up at 12AM. I'd go to sleep around 6PM, and have about 2-4 hours of sleep. Wake up around 9-10PM, stay awake till 3-4AM, then fall back to sleep again to wake up around 8, and go to work.


What's your productive hours, and how does that affect your schedule?

Since I work at night my productive hours are during the day before work. I think it's just a matter of having time to get in to the mood.

I think that while you may find concentration hard in the morning, it is still a learned habit. I bet if you were in a combat zone or some emergency, you would think fast as soon as you were awake!

I suspect the physiological affects of adrenaline and so on have a significant effect in that situation, and that it isn't simply "learned" or psychological.

[quote name='phantom' timestamp='1322087938' post='4887036']
Unless you have something which can disturb you then 'productive hours' are nothing more than a learned habit and purely psycological.

I can't agree with this. I'm not a morning person by any means, and regardless of how much sleep I get, I can't hold a thought for about the first 2-3 hours that I'm up. Even with caffeine, it takes awhile before my concentration is good enough that I can do anything. In the evening though, I'm wide awake and can focus, even despite distractions. Typically I can get more done from around 9 PM - midnight than 7 am-4 pm.
[/quote]

It has nothing to do with 'how much sleep' you get, it is all about what you are use to doing; pure habit nothing more. This will have been something you came to over a number of years as such simply going to sleep early and getting up expecting to magically be able to focus isn't going to cut it.

When I was a school kid I would get up at 7am and be in school for 9am, my productivity already ready to go. Over the years I slowly got into the habit of getting up later and later until, in my early 20s, I was getting up at 2pm each day and if I got up before then, regardless of how much sleep I had had, I couldn't get my brain to kick in at all before it would normally. Once I got a job and was forced to work at 'normal' hours I adjusted this, it took a while and for the first few months I was basically useless before 1pm, but after a while I could crawl out of bed at 9:30am and be on the ball by 10am when I got into work.

Due to F1 times I spent a week getting up at 7am and going to bed at 11pm; my normal cycle is somewhat closer to sleep at 1 or 2am and up again at 8:30 to 9:30am. Every morning, despite getting 8h sleep, I would wake up and feel tired still and had to force myself to get up. My mantra for that week was 'you have had 8 hours sleep, feeling tired is just psycological' and two days in I had adapted and was just as productive earlier.

My point is it is possible to change your 'productive time' it is simply a matter of reprogramming your brain so that you can enter that zone; I use music to make it easier but simply forcing yourself to work would probably function just as well.

Now, I am of course assuming everyone can do this and I assume I'm not "special" in anyway... maybe due to the way I grew up I'm perticually adapt at adjusting my own brain and its internal chemistry to suite my needs.. however I suspect this isn't the case and I'm willing to bet with some practise anyone could do it, at best I just might find it easier than most