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  "description": "Time for some night-owl counter-propaganda",
  "path": "/the-evening-writing-effect/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-02-22T06:43:33.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.autodidacts.io",
  "tags": [
    "100DaysToOffload",
    "View more posts in this series.",
    "the morning writing effect",
    "2am",
    "brought up",
    "Intentional Computing"
  ],
  "textContent": "****Note:**** this post is part of #100DaysToOffload, a challenge to publish 100 posts in 365 days. These posts are generally shorter and less polished than our normal posts; expect typos and unfiltered thoughts! View more posts in this series.\n\n\n\n\nGwern looked into the morning writing effect, and I read the post with interest.\n\nI would like to contribute my n=1 randomly uncontrolled study. This very poor quality, woefully underpowered study concludes: the morning writing effect is fake! The _evening_ writing effect is real.\n\nThe entire body of research consists of thinking about how many times in the past two months I have gotten up, feeling rested and energetic, and with plenty of time side aside, sat down to write an essay, and discovered that I have nothing to say.\n\nAnd, how many times I have been struck by an idea that feels alive, sometime between 7pm and 2am.\n\nIt happened this morning. I re-arranged my list of hundreds of essay ideas, sorting them by interestingness. I kept my computer offline. An hour set aside, caffeinated, no excuses. No ideas.\n\nNow, it’s 9:30, and I have an early morning tomorrow. Finally I feel like putting words down.\n\nI’ve published 46 posts in the past month, and drafted many more, and the pattern has become very familiar.\n\n* * *\n\nIn the comments on _The Morning Writing Effect,_ someone brought up “the idea that writers lie about their morning writing because it makes them sound virtuous.”\n\nBut I know that for some people, who aren’t writers, the morning writing effect is real. Some night-owl chronotypes even seem to do their best creative work in the mornings.\n\nMaybe I’m just tired? Does that explain my failure of morning writing? No. Even when I go to bed early, get up early, and fatigue isn’t the problem, I feel like my prime time is usually the second half of the day.\n\nA number of factors could contribute to _both_ the early morning, and evening, writing effects:\n\n  * in the morning and evening, we’re less likely to feel like we need to “get to work” on more productive things\n  * in the morning in evening, we’re more likely to be able to work in solitude for extended stretches of time without being interrupted\n  * in the morning and evening, our human, urban, and natural environments are quieter\n\n\n\nAnd then there are some factors that are specific to one time or the other:\n\n  * in the **morning** , we might still be in a groggy, dreamy condition\n  * in the **morning** , our minds might be more blank\n  * in the **evening** , we might have more thoughts and impressions rattling around from the day\n\n\n\nFor me, I think it’s the last one.\n\nI started an essay five years ago titled _The_ _Idea Collider,_ touched on the topic in Intentional Computing, and have another one in progress called _It’s scary that the mind is basically a blender._\n\nWhen I have a long-running project that I work on every day, I can usually get in the flow, if not in the morning, at least by noon. The ideas are partly there, and mainly what’s needed is to load them back into memory, and go from there.\n\nIt’s harder to start from scratch.\n\nI find that when I haven’t been reading, or getting new impressions, I have nothing to say. Perhaps this is the case at multiple scales. (Many things are.)\n\nOr perhaps, I’m way off the mark, because it’s late at night and my brain has shut down.",
  "title": "The Evening Writing Effect",
  "updatedAt": "2026-02-22T23:37:47.747Z"
}