The Write Time of Day
In college, I stayed up all night, most nights. I did some of my best work in the middle of the night. Granted, I also did some of my best procrastination. Whole nights went by in seas of Tetris, Minesweeper, and Risk.
I still do a lot of my best work in the middle of the night. With everyone else in the house asleep, I can't procrastinate by doing laundry or the dishes (not that those are normally strong pulls, but it happens), I can't watch TV (though I might manage to keep the volume low for Glee or Survivor), and I can't hang out with Miss M or my husband. I brew a pot of coffee, make a snack, pop on my noise-canceling headphones, start up Pandora, and settle in for a gloriously peaceful long night of productivity.
There's just one problem these days. I get tired.
It's really been a problem for the last ten years. I expect myself to have the stamina of my college days, and I just don't. It's strange, in a way, because I'm actually in better shape than I was back then, but I'm also doing more, which is tiring.
And yeah, there's that nagging thing about being many years older than I was in college.
Still, when it's a good night — a night the computer screen doesn't turn into swirling hypnotic colors and I can actually stay awake and focused — there's nothing better than cranking well into the wee hours. If I'm inspired and on just the right caffeine buzz, I can make it to four in the morning and have great writing to show for it.
Yet since I can only handle that every so often, I've gotten much better at getting myself into that perfect-worknight zone in whatever patch of time I can find, whether it's the fifteen minutes between packing Miss M's lunch and waking her up for school, or the hour I'm snagging right now between working out and picking her back up from school.
Do you have a favorite time of day to work? Has it always been the same, or has it changed over time? Are you able to crank as well during other times of the day, or do circumstances need to be a very specific way for you to feel like you're doing your best?
By the way, about that workout — I'm basically doing the last month of the "Four Months to a Four Hour Marathon" book to prepare for the L.A. Marathon (which I in no way plan to finish in four hours). I'm kind of pretending I did the first three months. Today was supposed to be an 8-mile speed workout. I made it 6.5, then did the last 1.5 as a cooldown on the elliptical. Not ideal, but not bad.
