Blog Tip 13. Find your Golden Hour
I’m a (mid) morning person – 10am until midday are what I call my golden hours. They are when I am at my best in terms of thinking creatively and getting things done.
That’s not to say that I fall in a heap for the rest of my day. All I know is that if I need to be coming up with ideas, writing important posts, run a class (six figure blogging started at 10am Melbourne time) or thinking through the big issues that those are the hours I put aside for this type of work.
Identify those time/s in the day (some of us have a number of golden hours – I often come alive at about 10.30pm also) when you’re at your best and clear those times of the day for your most important and creative work.
Dead Patches – On the flip side of the Golden Hour is that most of us also have dead patches in our daily rhythm. For me it’s 2pm – 4pm. I’m next to useless at this time of day when it comes to productivity – it’s like my brain shifts into siesta mode. So most afternoons at this time you can find me either having an afternoon nap, in the garden, reading a novel or catching up with people.
It’s really about finding your own rhythm as a person and working within it to work to your strengths and weaknesses to get your best results.
Mix it Up – Of course every rule has it’s exceptions and another thing you might want to try is to completely mix things up from time to time. If you always write at the same time each day religiously – try changing it up occasionally as an experiment. Get up early and try writing, stay up late, write in short sessions etc. Mixing up the time of day and/or the lengths of time you assign for writing can cause you to approach the task of writing differently which could bring different results.
What’s your daily rhythm like? Do you have a Golden hour (or more than one)? What do you schedule into these times?
Read the rest of the Battling Bloggers Block Series.
I tend to work best during the morning hours, i’m usually up at around 5:30AM these days and start work at about 7AM’ish. Although I don’t do much writing at this type, its mostly development work and reading blogs!
[…] What made me start thinking about the best time to work was a post here by Darren Rowse. If you haven’t come across Darren before let me tell you that he is a very prolific and very successful writer who likes to share his blogging expertise with other people who want to make money from blogging. Technorati Tags: home office small business […]
I’m the contrary – a late afternoon/early evening person. I give my best between around 5 pm and 9 pm–although, on good days, I start being productive around 2 pm. I may be an early riser, but morning hours still aren’t the moment at which I’m the most focused.
I work in the night – 10 PM – 01 AM after my offline job finished.
Trully said that was the very tired night to write blog.
But when I start to get some inspiration, I become motivated.
It’s wierd but true.
My golden hours are fluctuating somewhere around 10am and 4-5pm. I’m getting into the “nap” mode around 2pm and of course in the evening, after 8-9pm. At that times I’m starting to feel sleepy…like at this time:-)
[…] Merlin Mann has a great podcast on Learning to work around the times that you are most energetic and productive. Sounds like a simple concept but so many of us just don’t do it. I think it’s a great tip for bloggers to apply (as per my post on finding your golden hour previously). Found via LifeHacker. […]
[…] Find Your Golden Hour – Battling Bloggers Block: Blog Tips at ProBlogger (tags: productivity lifehacks blogging) […]
[…] In fact, recaps also work for what Darren Rowse calls dead patches – times during the day where you creative juices run dry. And they work as well when you need to keep up the posting when on vacation. […]