The Stupid Hour

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Rachel Kroll writes about that time of night when you can choose between sleeping or pulling an all-nighter:

I call it “the stupid hour”. When talking about myself, I call it my stupid hour. It’s the point when I’ve been awake for too long and anything I create is sure to be suboptimal. The late hour has drained enough out of me to where I turn stupid and my output shows this.

I am, by nature, a night owl. I prefer to work late - with peak productivity between 10 p.m. and 3 a.m. This schedule changed by necessity after getting married. Still, I find myself drawn to that time slot. It is often tempting (and easy) to push past my urge to sleep. Kroll’s takeaway largely matches my own results. Continually pushing past tired generally leads to crap. A little sleep goes a long way - and so does time management.1


  1. I am awful at managing time. Conversely, my wife is awesome - and she never lets me forget. ↩︎