Hideki A. Ikeda (HidekiAI) [池田英紀] ["Tony" Ikeda] – BLog

I just saw a very interesting survey at www.CodeProject.com.  It was/is interesting to me because I used to keep track of daily logs and journals to determine why I felt so unproductive (to me, as a programmer, productivity is based on getting my tasks done on time).

Here’s the snapshot of the survey:

When do you do your best coding?

Survey period: 31 Aug 2009 to 7 Sep 2009

Are you a night owl? An early riser? Or does 9-5 work for you?
Choose the periods in which you feel you code best.

Option	Votes	%
6am – 9am	284	18.39
9am – 12pm	615	39.83
12pm – 3pm	256	16.58
3pm – 6pm	381	24.68
6pm – 9pm	350	22.67
9pm – 12am	430	27.85
12am – 3am	302	19.56
3am – 6am	118	7.64
Responses	1544
This is a multiple choice question. Totals may not add up to 100%

From: http://www.codeproject.com/script/Surveys/Results.aspx?srvid=953

Notice that the highest productivity for most are at 0900-1200 hrs.  When I did contracting for a while working from home, I realized that when I woke up at 0700 hrs and began straight to work, I was able to solve problems and issues much more efficiently and quicker in the mornings.

So based on that pattern, I began to make sure that any issues which involved more analytical and thinking process were reserved for the mornings or put off until the next day if needed, and anything that was more mechanical were scheduled after 1200 (noon).

I dislike mornings, I prefer to sleep in until 0800 or later on weekends.  So I’m not really a morning person, or to say that I am productive in the early mornings.  I believe it is more about having a good rest and stepping away from the problems for period of time is what makes me productive.

This is why I never pull an all-nighters (if I can help it) because if I cannot solve the problems due to my “big muscle” (our brain) being tired, it’s just unproductive and inefficient in the long run.

I’ve made dumb coding-mistakes in the past due to lack of sleep.  The one that I remember most well and use as my example is the one about multiplying an integer by 8 by using a loop for it (in Assembly Language, I think it was on Zilog Z80).  Yes, if I was wide awake (or even half awake), I would have just left-shifted the register (the integer value) by 3 and be done with it…  The next day when I saw that code, I was in horror…

Unfortunately, I did not learn any lesson back then, I was young and I always assumed putting more hours into it in single sittings meant working hard at it.  I did not realize that it was important to work smarter, not harder…

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