Researchers Discover The Most Creative Time of Day

Creativity is least likely to strike in the afternoon, according to a survey that suggests office workers have little chance of solving problems after lunch. A poll of 1,426 people showed that a quarter of us stay up late when seeking inspiration. Taking a shower or just sitting in the bathroom proved to be a popular way of getting the creative juices flowing. The survey found that 10:04pm was the most creative time, while 4:33pm was the least. I'll think of something funny to write here later.

Comments

No Kidding

[maz2331]

Quite likely it's due to the chance to decompress a bit that creativity occurs outside of normal hours. It's really hard to focus and think up anything actually creative when the PHBs are bugging the hell out of you, or the phone is ringing with someone panicing about what is usually a non-issue.

It's why great authors often are almost recluses while working on a book.

Stress, meetings, coworkers, etc. do more to kill creativity than anything else.

Creativity requires being relaxed and focused on the actual problem to be solved. Normal office life is the exact opposite of that environment.

Re:My Take

[HTH NE1]

The thing is, she's not technical (in my field) so I have to explain everything, pretty much. Metaphors help a lot too. But because she's actually paying attention, there's no getting away with hand-waving.

Indeed, talking to a human is much better than "talking to the [teddy] bear" as it is called here in that a human pays attention. And talking to a human that doesn't know the subject has its own benefits, as Douglas Adams pointed out:

"There really wasn't a lot this machine could do that you couldn't do yourself in half the time with a lot less trouble," said Richard, "but it was, on the other hand, very good at being a slow and dim-witted pupil."

Reg looked at him quizzically.

"I had no idea they were supposed to be in short supply," he said. "I could hit a dozen with a bread roll from where I'm sitting."

"I'm sure. But look at it this way. What really is the point of trying to teach anything to anybody?"

This question seemed to provoke a murmur of sympathetic approval from up and down the table.

Richard continued, "What I mean is that if you really want to understand something, the best way is to try and explain it to someone else. That forces you to sort it out in your own mind. And the more slow and dim-witted your pupil, the more you have to break things down into more and more simple ideas. And that's really the essence of programming. By the time you've sorted out a complicated idea into little steps that even a stupid machine can deal with, you've certainly learned something about it yourself. The teacher usually learns more than the pupil. Isn't that true?"

"It would be hard to learn much less than my pupils," came a low growl from somewhere on the table, "without undergoing a pre-frontal lobotomy."

BTW, I wouldn't suggest you compare your sweetheart to a very slow, dim-witted pupil. Certainly not to her face.

Re:Doesn't this depend on your schedule?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm also in early old farthood (41 too). I get up at 3:40 AM, am at my desk by 5:00 AM and leave the office at 2:30 PM (home by 3:45 PM). I can choose my own hours, and I pick those so that I miss the worst of the traffic and can do things like coach soccer for the kids from say 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM. After that, dead tired by 9:00 PM on coaching nights. On nights with no soccer, maybe 8:00 PM. It certainly works well for me to have that schedule and I would say my most creative time is around 6:00 AM before there are enough other people in the office (there ARE some, and some that beat me in!) to bother the creativity out of me.

I doubt that it does much good to take a bunch of people who probably have completely different 'most creative times' and average them out or take mean or whatever. As all that would say is, 'this isn't anyone's best time, but it is an average'.

Survey said ...

[hedronist]

Shower! (Ding!)

My employees used to joke that the company would make more money if we had a shower installed in my office. I claimed I would end up looking like a prune, but was told that that might also be an improvement.

Re:My Take

[cailith1970]

That's the equivalent of what I've heard called (and which I call) "Rubber Dummy Syndrome." You need to solve a problem. You've been wracking your brains on it for hours. In desperation, you go and get help on it, so you start to describe the problem to a colleague. About half way through describing the problem, you stop, say "never mind," and realise that you've solved it. The person you're talking to never need say a word. It's the act of DESCRIBING the problem that finally gives you the solutions.

As for the best time of the day to think? For me, either 8am or 10pm. Or in the toilet, or making a hot drink in the kitchen. Occasionally I've been trying to solve some problem, and my boss said to me "Go and make a cuppa, looks like you need to think." And damned if it didn't usually work :)

Re:My Take

[lysergic.acid]

while i don't have a "sweetheart"--not anymore at least, i can empathize with the teaching analogy.

i used to tutor struggling students after-school at my school library. and even though i'd learned most of the material i went over with them long ago, teaching it to them helped me gain a much stronger grasp of these concepts.

most poor students aren't stupid. some lack discipline or are lazy, and some just learn differently from others. the students that came to me for help were obviously motivated to learn and not lazy. but they needed help understanding certain concepts that just weren't getting through the way the teacher tried to explain it to them.

this experience taught me to analyze a problem from many different perspectives. i would experiment with different analogies and gauge how the pupil responded to it, adjusting my teaching methods accordingly. not only did i help most pupils to walk away confident in their academic abilities, but i also learned to take unconventional approaches to difficult problems and analyze the subtle connections between different concepts and ideas.

this approach proved invaluable in elucidating difficult concepts to struggling pupils, but it has also taught me to be more elastic in my own thought process, helping me solve many challenging problems.

so teaching others is definitely one of the best ways to learn. just as helping others is the best way to help yourself.

Re:World of Warcraft Time!!!

[laejoh]

Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.