> This feels like an incredibly elaborate way to say that he's a morning person.

If you read the whole article there’s a section dedicated to evening people.

Regardless, the advice is about avoiding emotionally draining stimuli until you’ve accomplished what you want to do for the day.

You can wake up at noon and still do that. The root problem is that people are consuming large amounts of negative news and social media early in the day and draining their mental capacity before they even get started on what they want to do.

I see this all the time in, for example, junior hires. Some of them will tell me they’re exhausted or they have no time to do anything outside of their 40 hour workweek. When I ask some questions to figure out where their time is going every day, it always comes down to spending so much time on phones and watching Netflix that their time and energy are fully consumed before they have a chance at anything else.

The advice in the article is good and it’s not about being a morning person.

Tangental but I noted this quote from 4HWW:

> Ask: if this is the only thing I accomplish today, will I be satisfied with my day? Don’t ever arrive at your computer without a clear list of priorities, you’ll just read unassociated email and scramble your brain for the day.

When I read that last bit ("scramble your brain") I had a profound sense of agreement that this was incredibly applicable to me. I feel like distractions 'poison' my vibe, productivity, priorities, and most importantly, distract that bit of my brain that ticks away in the background working on important creative stuff. When it's distracted with news, emails, or other junk, it's unavailable to work on creative/important problems that actually matter.

Does the following part mean they're a morning person, or is it orthogonal?

> “Every day is a new beginning. You wake up and at some point in the day, someone shoots up a school, or something’s going on with your family, or you wake up and eat the wrong thing. And then you’re done. Emotionally cooked. Literally and emotionally poisoned.

> Every day I wake up and can get to the studio before something has shattered my existence, I am grateful. And I can do things.

Maybe he is, but the advice stays for "evening-persons" too. I'm not an early bird, but I noticed that I am most productive when I pull all-nighters, when nothing happens and when no one bothers me. With age it is harder and harder to do though...

I think there is some sound advice in there that just happens to fit into his mornings. Take always like having your day poisoned by news, stuff in your life and so on would also occur for you if you woke up later. I do agree that it’s not that deep. Anyone who’s bipolar has ADHD or other “doesn’t fit into the 9-5 society” issues can likely tell you how their emotions will fuck with their productivity.

There isn’t a whole lot you can do with it if you don’t have the freedom to work when you’re energised and stop when you’re not. A lot of us in the software industry have the advantage of being able to not work a lot during “normal hours” and then pull off an entire weeks worth of work on a Saturday, but a lot of us don’t. I worked 30 hours a week for a while (37 is normal in Denmark) and I consistently scores between 20-30% better on our infernal measurements for quality and productivity than I did when I went back to a 37 hour week. Not because I was doing anything different, felt less motivated or was intentionally trying to do anything different. I was simply more tired and it impacted me more than it might do to neurotypical (or whatever we call healthy people these days). Of course for me personally the 37 hours are way better because it pays 20% more.

Anyway, even if you aren’t neurodivergent like me I still suspect you’re not cut out to do office work as though you were at an assembly line. Which is really where the modern “work week” originated. Cutting down on distractions, getting enough sleep and so on will obviously work in your favour. So yeah, I agree with you.

There's something it it though that's not interchangeable, that becomes a bigger factor as you age (see: that Bezos quote).

The brain is becoming more physically tired during the day. At a certain point, say 5pm, it's done: the accumulated wear and tear is too much. Try again after sleeping.

This might not be a concern at 20 but is at 60 (Bezos' age).

He’s really talking about how to maintain focus and neurological energy, but doesn’t have the right words.

Fwiw, I wrote about it here:

https://vonnik.substack.com/p/the-inner-game-of-knowledge-wo...

It’s something I struggle with, too.

If you don't wanna read elaborations on known concepts then don't read articles.

I think simplistic terms like "morning person" and "night owl" are https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_cliché applied to identity. Much like "introvert" and "extrovert".

Did you read the article?, is about doing the importnat stuff when no one is around to distract you. >Not an early riser? No problem, just flip it.

Avoid the day. And when it’s done, that’s when your focussed work starts (my favourite adherent of this approach is Demis Hassabis: who works a “second day” from between 11pm and 4am).

Exactly this.

I agree with this, but I also don't think the strategies are mutually exclusive.

Especially if what you want to be productive on is art, it's good to take advantage of the time when you feel most connected to yourself. But I find that connection requires lowering all of my defenses, including to the outside world. So it's still best to do that before I've been beset by the news.

At the same time, being more resilient can help me get other useful stuff done through the rest of the day, including stuff that is sort of adjacent to the art-making process. (For example, I make music and it's hard to find an inspired melody later in the afternoon when my head is aswirl with the chaos of the world, but I can still putter around with sound design and mixing.)

but none of these people are actually good, so its ok.

I'm in the same boat where 6pm comes and I actually have a hard time shifting gears from writing code or thinking intensely about my project. I've been working on my focus and starting earlier in the day. The difference is when I get on track earlier I still chug along until the end of the day. Then by night I'm exhausted and go to bed early.

Work/life balance is important so I should probably listen to my body and focus when it wants to.

If you want something done ask the busiest person you know

You might enjoy this discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41942096

The Magic of Not Giving a F** : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwRzjFQa_Og

Short 10-20 minute naps during the day can do this

Perhaps nsdr (popularized by Huberman).

That isn’t what it says at all- they’re saying don’t get emotionally poisoned before you start working- the author says this is still important and doable even if you are an evening person, starting work early is just one strategy

American?