Leveraging my natural nocturnal rhythm
Everyone says: “do your creative work first thing in the morning!!” I say no. How deoptimizing your work schedule could lead to your best creative work
Brook Slagle • 2023-11-12
yo it is brook here!
Everyone says: “do your creative work first thing in the morning!!”
I say no.
…
I was recently asked what my schedule for writing was.. and I realized that I didn’t have a good answer.
But that is a lie.
I just didn’t understand my personal rhythm. But that has changed.
This is how I leverage my natural nocturnal rhythm and how de-optimizing your work schedule could lead to your best creative work.
Twitter bros LOVE optimizing. They LOVE pushing writing as the first thing in the morning.
If I do write first thing in the morning, I end up with a blank page as my groggy ass is still waking up.
I do my best by waking up and getting moving. Not by putting my pen to paper or moving pixels around on my canvas.
Rarely do I have enough stability to get the first 3 hours of my day to myself.
And then, after the supposedly “PRIME” hours are gone… I have to do “work”. I don’t have a full time 9-5, for me it is a 11am-6pm… but the solopreneurship doesn’t pay all the bills quite yet.
And so with my current living situation, my best work is done not before my “work” hours.. but instead AFTER my day is “through”… when everyone else is sleeping in bed.
This isn’t 5AM instagram hustle-hardwork reel cringe.
This is 11pm tired-but-wired-creativity hours.
And it has ALWAYS been this way for me.
I have always been my most obsessed, focused, and creative self during the nights.
When I was younger, I used to be an avid gamer, and would play Call of Duty late into the night.
But once my friends all got off and went to bed… I reopened the minimized Photoshop window and something beautiful came out.
That was the start of everything.
And I am not alone in this. There are many night owls who create some of their best work at night.
Let’s take Tim Ferriss as an example.
The 4-Hour Work Week and many of the subsequent 4-Hour bestsellers wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for Tim’s writing schedule.
He would begin writing at 9 PM and end at 4 AM. The true definition of burning the midnight oil.
For me, work begins after 8pm.
By this time, I am done with eating dinner, food settles, and so is everyone else in the house.
They all escape to their respective resting spots to engage R&R.
I find my quiet spot and my creative work.
Sometimes, I reference my notes & appends. This usually gets me somewhere and allows me to start pulling the thread of creativity.
Sometimes, I have an idea in mind and I start with that.
Other times, I end up nearly getting defeated by a blank page.
> Resistance has entered the chat
When this happens, it is usually because of one of two reasons:
Cluttered and full mind.
Empty and blank mind.
I attack each scenario respectively by:
Training. Clear and clean out the mind by clearing out the body.
Consume. Read or watch something to give my brain a spark.
And then the rest is history.
I follow the thread wherever it takes me, and usually leads to magic.
The magic is special, and there is ALWAYS something inside of it - always something inside the box.
But most people don’t stack the odds in their favor to open the box.
Don’t limit yourself to the hyper-optimization bros and only wake up with the sun… or wake up with the pen in your hand and a notebook on your pillow.
Leverage your habits.
The night is where my best work is done. And recently I came across the one-liner that connected the dots for me. And was the inspiration behind this week's entry.
Tired = Less overthinking = MORE CREATIVITY
Here is a more drawn out version:
Balance fatigue with zero distraction → Bring in ambition and curiosity → You can make something beautiful.
Deoptimization bros stay winning.
KEEP GOING
B.S.