Friday, July 31, 2015

Musings: Maximum Creativity at 0300 and Alcohol

If you ever see a post getting published here at 3:00 am or 4:00 am, that's not an automated system -- assuming the time is in the right zone. That's all me. I am a night person and don't much enjoy getting up bright and early, which means noon for me. This has been a fact for most of my life.

What I didn't fully realize until recently was that I am very creative and productive after 12:00 am in the morning.  Ideas fly in and concentration increases. Part of it is probably the thought that the day's going to be ending soon, so I better have something to show for it. Guilt's a pretty good motivator. A lot of my ideas seem to pop up in the morning. Even if I don't end up working on or finishing them that late or early, writing the ideas down turns them into finished products within a few days usually.

However, that all comes with an asterisk: I have to be well rested that day and can not have started early because then my brain stays mush. Getting up early just makes me feel tired all day from start to finish. Coffee and tea are temporary -- there was a period of time where they just made me feel hyper to the point where I couldn't stay still. One job required an hour long commute each way and travel time turned into nap time. What I wanted to do was be productive and read, but keeping my eyes opened turned into a rigged game I couldn't win.

There's also that alcohol thing. The early morning combined with a few drinks of alcohol seem to really open the gates. Luckily, I don't drink to too much excess and my writing is mostly legible the next day. Come to think of it, it's been pretty "dry" around here lately, and I have been running out of ideas. Think I found the problem...

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