Why you’re not doing creative work

Re:Why you’re not doing creative work by ChrisMarshallNY on Tuesday March 01, 2022 @07:02AM (#30513103)

I’ve found that my most productive time is in the early morning. I can bang out a lot of high-quality code, and find and fix very difficult bugs, before 10AM.

I find I’m most creative, though, in the afternoon. I often start something in the afternoon, then get it working, the next morning.

Also, I’m constantly in “ship” mode. I write all my code (even the experimental stuff) as if it is shipping code.

That means a lot of “stopping to sand off the rough edges,” as I proceed.

I seem to strike a decent balance between creating and delivering.

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Re:Why you’re not doing creative work by jermaustin1 on Tuesday March 01, 2022 @08:59AM (#30514185)

I am also most productive before 10AM, but that is usually because 6-10 is the only time I have to work, because at 10AM, meetings usually start, and they don't stop until around 3pm (sometimes as late as 6pm near releases), and by then my entire soul has been sucked from my body and I need 12-16 hours to slowly reel it back in.

I love WFH, but this is the one part that has seriously killed me. Before WFH, management was rarely in the office before 10AM or between 12PM-2PM and I would sneak out at 4PM every day. Now that everyone is WFH, the concept of work hours has died. I still have a hard stop at 4pm, but doesn't stop me from getting calls or texts even as late as midnight - I just refused to answer anything after I'm done working and put my phone on silence.

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Re:Why you’re not doing creative work by fddhjjj on Tuesday March 01, 2022 @08:35AM (#30513883)

A lot of wisdom here. Allow me to just restate and expand on some of your thoughts.

1. If it goes from experimental to ship, you aren’t going to go back and make it shipshape.

2. Sanding time is meditation on the product. As I rework, I’m revisiting the code and design at multiple levels.

3. Before 10am is the old programmers 2am. It’s quiet. The hustle and interruptions of the day haven’t begun.

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Re:Why you’re not doing creative work by ChrisMarshallNY on Tuesday March 01, 2022 @12:45PM (#30517284)

> 1. If it goes from experimental to ship, you aren’t going to go back and make it shipshape.

Also, I'm constantly mining my codebase for snippets, so I would like them to be quality.

The other main reason, is that I like to establish good habits. If I do all my code that way, I don't have to worry about taking extra care for the shipping stuff.

I write about my approach, here: https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/thats-not-what-ships...

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Re:Why you’re not doing creative work by 91edec on Tuesday March 01, 2022 @07:07AM (#30513143)

I'm in the same boat. I've started waking up at 5am to make the most of this. 5-7 work on side projects, 7-11 actual work then after than I'm done for the day.

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