Who is creative at night?

(regarding code, gfx, music etc. :)

I had some discussion about it with someone last weekend, he argued that at night your brain goes odd, giving you more creative impulses.

Also, the famous quote: Real Programmers never work 9 to 5. If they are around at 9 AM, it's because they were up all night.

During my study I heard the same from fellow students who also preferred working at night.

I enjoy coding at night as it relaxes me. Same with music, I generally do much better in the evenings. What aboot yerself?

Well, if that's the case, my game should be considered extremely innovative as I work 3rd shift and spend most of that time working on my game. I've come up with some really awesome ideas (or at least the seeds that turned into a good idea - and no, this isn't a drug reference XD) when heavily sleep deprived.

Of course, I sleep during all the daylight hours and so I don't know if I'm really "more creative" at night, simply because it's effectively always night time when I'm working. I like it though, there are far fewer distractions, nothing good on TV to watch (I don't really watch TV anyhow, but if I did...), etc.

The external world tends to shrink to the four walls of your den - in the small hours of the morning, I find.

I'm also very active with coding at night. It's just so quiet (unless I want to listen to some music).

I think night time programming is simply better because you have way less chance of being disturbed, and everything is quiet.

You know pretty much you will not be distracted.

My studio has no windows, only a clock to remind me of the time. And yet I prefer working in evenings or nights, dunno why. It seems to be a creative thing. In fact, even for commissions I tend to start at night, preferably the night preceding the morning of the deadline.. :-)

Me too. I prefer to do a bit of coding during the evening. Around 9pm I'm well away.
I've done my fair share of late-night coding too. Eventually deciding to go sleep around 4am.
Shame I have to get up for work at 6am though(!)

I get my best ideas while drifting off to sleep at three in the morning but can never be bothered to get up to write them down.

..I'm always doing best part of my work after sex..o yea..

I bet your g/f wishes you were doing your best work during sex. :P

Ahem - but there's a difference between good coding and when or how you get your best ideas.

I code best late at night, but get my best ideas standing slack jawed in the shower thinking of nothing in particular ;-)

yeah best music I made was in the middle of the night. It's not so good for coding as you make mistakes but good for ideas. So is just sittingon the loo, going for a walk, eating lunch etc (which reminds me, must eat some soup!)

I work much better at night. Shame I get paid to work during the day :-o

I was really a nights-person for .. err .. allways actually. The week before last week I needed to get up early for my new job, so I tried using Valerian. It worked amazingly well: I fell asleep at eleven, and woke up at 4 (am!) for a week. The downside was that at the end of the day, I became very tired, but I really enjoyed programming in the early morning. It was a complete new experience. It has the same relaxed atmosphere as you get at night, only it felt much more clear.

I like working at night a lot but after about 4am if I hit a problem I find it very hard to work out a solution but after a few hours of sleep it becomes very clear.

However I have to agree with b32 I think my favourite time to code is first thing in the morning starting about 6am (Well for me at least) You get that same atmosphere you get in the night, your thoughts are all in order and can think creatively but also logically. And the main advantage over the middle of the night is your not tired at all. In fact your totally awake.

Coding at night works great until you get married. :)

Creative people are usually B people, ie. people who are more crative and alert in the afternoon to early morning, whereas A people are more alert from morning till night.

It's biological, but very few have studied it, assuming that B people are just lazy or need to get their work rythm in sync.

Andy

I'm creative in the afternoon. I'm way too lazy and tired at night. Call me a B. And I can't sleep well if I code right before bed, cuz my mind is still running because too many things are deemed "unfinished"

I'm only creative at night, especially in bed.

I was waiting for somebody to write that.
I don't know about you, but this thread's title is just screaming for it!

Err... nothing. Never mind.

*Runs away*

I agree, the quieter it is the easier programming is :)

Raises hand ... in fact if you look at my profile on Great Games Experiment you'll see my quote/motto is "The still of the night causes a storm in the mind" ... I firmly stand behind that because I'm at least 10X as creative at night. People always harp on me too ... but it's just the way it is.

I prefer working late at night too, it's definitely the most productive time for me.

Too many distractions during the daytime make it very difficult to concentrate on complicated projects.

i work late at night

i usually can't sleep anyway, so it helps out and plus i get a lot done that way

I can't stand working at night. The reason is that i get all the best ideas at night time but am too tired to put them in to code. When that happens I just jot down what I was thinking , go to bed and wake up early (around 5.30am) and put the idea to code.

Plus I'm lucky in that i don't work anymore. Yes, I'm on the benefits. A hell of a lot of them also. :)

Yeah, I get my best ideas late at night after a couple of beers. The downside is that in most cases I can delete the things I coded at night and write them again more solid the next day. Conclusion: nightsession=good ideas, bad implementation.
Best time to code for me is in the morning hours (7-12) with some inspiring music and a big cup of coffee. Well, I'm 30+ and got used to stay up early even on weekends.

Nothing's more beautiful than coding in the very early hours, then make a break and watch the sunrise while knowing you have the whole day left to keep coding.

Said this and been up since 5:30 today.

I used to believe I worked best at night. And then I started getting up at 5:00am instead. I get WAY more done in a few hours that way then I ever did by staying up all night.

It's called: Night Owl!

I know that when I am towards being tired my mind is a bit looser and that might give rise to some extre degree of inspiration.