Are people who stay up late less successful?

[tashirosgt]

I've never know anyone who was financially prosperous who stayed up late at night. So I wonder what factors about staying up late interfere with success in the practical side of life.

I think some of this is explained by the simple fact that people who stay up late often do not have jobs, or , if they do have day jobs, they aren't following a lifestyle that optimizes their performance during the day.

Aside from that, I notice that people who stay up late get out of sync with the rest of the world. For example, I have night owl friends who complain bitterly if an office or business closes as "early" as 4:30 PM.

Other things I notice about staying up late ( I can do it because I am retired):

1. Your mental approach to problems tends to be imaginative daydreaming, not concentrated thought. You can have all sorts of "good" ideas late at night that look bad the next day.

2. You have a false sense of leisure. You feel that you have all the time in the world when staying up late at home.. So you get distracted. Projects you want to do "this evening" don't get done.

My conclusion is that staying up late is OK when you want to accomplish nothing or when you need to do imaginative work.. Otherwise, "Early to bed, early to rise..... ".

[tdvance]

Some scientist/inventor--Alexander Graham Bell maybe? I recall practically lived in his laboratory, set something up and started it running, took a nap, came back and worked on it some and set it running again, took a nap....all around the clock. I remember reading about it in elementary school, but can't remember who it was.

Of course, Ben Franklin said, Early to bed, early to rise.... and he was pretty successful in (and almost killed because of) what he did. But since Ben is on the $100 bill and Bell is a company that has been broken up, maybe history has passed judgment :)

[Celestial Mechanic]

Some scientist/inventor--Alexander Graham Bell maybe? I recall practically lived in his laboratory, set something up and started it running, took a nap, came back and worked on it some and set it running again, took a nap....all around the clock. I remember reading about it in elementary school, but can't remember who it was. [Snip!]
I think it was Thomas Alva Edison that had sleep habits like that.

[Ara Pacis]

I think I heard that Leo da Vinci also had habits like that. Catnapping, they call it.

I don't know if I am less successful because I stay up late or if I stay up late because I am less successful. In my case, I would say that it is due to recurrent illness lately that limits food and exercise, which is often an important component of a daily rhythm. Then again, I've had late night tendencies before, such as in college.

[mugaliens]

Yeah, I tend to be a night owl. I wouldn't exactly call myself "unsuccessful," though...

[Ross PK81]

Some people are naturally night owls (like myself). For them to go to bed early and get out of bed early it would probably be more detrimental.

[novaderrik]

i've always done better at night shift jobs than at day shift jobs.

[Gillianren]

Of course, Ben Franklin said, Early to bed, early to rise.... and he was pretty successful in (and almost killed because of) what he did. But since Ben is on the $100 bill and Bell is a company that has been broken up, maybe history has passed judgment :)

Well--he said that's how you should live. Whether he followed it or not is a different issue which seems to depend on where he was and what he was doing at any given time. (In the French court, there wasn't much point in getting up early, as no one else did, and events could keep going late into the night.) He was good at moralizing, but his own life was a lot more colourful than that.

As I discussed with someone a long time ago, those who are night owls by inclination may well end up in lower-paying fields because those are the ones where you can take the shift. On the other hand, I suspect many people in creative fields can be night owls without any problems, because it doesn't really matter when you write, and if you're in a performing art, that's when shows are anyway.

[Sp1ke]

I think some of this is explained by the simple fact that people who stay up late often do not have jobs, or , if they do have day jobs, they aren't following a lifestyle that optimizes their performance during the day.

Aside from that, I notice that people who stay up late get out of sync with the rest of the world. For example, I have night owl friends who complain bitterly if an office or business closes as "early" as 4:30 PM.

I'd disagree with this anecdotal evidence. It's nearly midnight here in the UK, I'll be up for a couple of hours more, and I've got a day job. Everyone has different sleep patterns - some need 9 hours' sleep a night, others can operate fine on 5 or 6. I can't see any need to correlate staying up late with failure...

[kleindoofy]

... Other things I notice about staying up late ...:

1. Your mental approach to problems tends to be imaginative daydreaming, not concentrated thought.

2. You have a false sense of leisure. You feel that you have all the time in the world when staying up late at home. So you get distracted. Projects you want to do "this evening" don't get done.

My conclusion is that staying up late is OK when you want to accomplish nothing ...
Huh?

Where did you get your information?

As an owl I can assure you that you must be speaking for yourself.

No concentrated thought late at night? I paid my way through the first years of university working as a night clerk at a small hotel a few nights a week. It suited me perfectly. I did most of my studying there, including marching around in the lobby in the middle of the night reciting conjugation tables of the Ancient Greek verb. How can you learn Ancient Greek without being able to concentrate? That's nonsense.

I was know for staying long nights at the institute library and when I started programming, I did most of my programming at night, when I was undisturbed. If I was only daydreaming, why are a few of those old programs still be used today, unchanged? And how in the world did I ever get my master's degree?

To this day a large portion of my workday takes place at night. Being self-employed, if I didn't have a high productivity rate, I'd be broke by now. I'm very far from being broke.

[tashirosgt]

Marching around a table reciting the conjugation of a verb doesn't fit my idea of mental concentration. (It does illustrate a point that many students don't appreciate. Understanding alone is not enough. Understanding and Drill are two different things.)

Imaginative things can be accomplished at night. I'd say that writing fits that category. Perhaps programming and web page design does also. The problem comes when you try to do work that is constrained by the world at large. Will that hinge fit on this gate design? The hinge is in the garage. I don't want to hunt for it in the middle of the night. Did Ed want this stuff arranged in columns or as a list? I'll have to wait until tomorrow to ask him. Phil wants to discuss this stuff at lunch. I'll have to get up early.

[kleindoofy]

Interesting.

Do you have any further misconceptions you would like to share?

Perhaps about left-handed people, or people who listen to jazz, or people with tatoos?

[tashirosgt]

Hot jazz vs cool jazz is an interesting division of taste. I don't often deliberately listen music. I hear enough of it incidentally. It amuses me to hear my over-30 friends get apoplectic about rap music. (Are there people who don't like rap music but like to listen to Charles Ives? ).

I wonder if the tattoo phenomenon is correlated with the body piercing phenomenon.

[ShadowSot]

I stay up late, and I'm fairly apathetic and lazy.
However, that's mostly because I tend to get woken up constantly before finally gettin' up for work in the morning.
On days where I stay up late, but sleep soundly, I am fairly active and motivated.

[raptorthang]

Huh?

I did most of my studying there, including marching around in the lobby in the middle of the night reciting conjugation tables of the Ancient Greek verb. How can you learn Ancient Greek without being able to concentrate? That's nonsense.



I sang all my Latin and Greek noun endings to tunes and conjugated verbs in association with weird objects. When I was studying geology I would do the same with mineral compositions, crystal patterns, etc. Far from repetitive braindead babble I thought it quite creative.

RE the subject: I have spent time on and off in the Canadian north and thrive on a schedule in which days and nights become meaningless. After about a week of adjustment to 24 hour daylight a whole new pattern of living takes over. . It is quite liberating. Inuit children are out playing at 3AM or at 3PM...nobody cares or notices. Sleep, meals, etc. are no longer determined by a clock but by a more natural need. Is it Monday or Wednesday...makes no difference.

Some of my fondest memories are simple ones of heading down to Dawson City, Yukon in the Klondyke and just 'hanging out' for a couple of days. Folks are sitting by the river or sleeping by the river...no need or sense of time. Drifters in from northern mines, etc, just roll out their sleeping bags and nap when they feel the need.

It's an odd feeling when returning to southern Canada. The world feels like it's in a box again with everything determined by the clock...meals, meetings, lab work, lectures, etc. Our lives are so accustomed to structure that we don't recognize most of it around us. My theory is that a lot of great art, music, poetry, novels, etc. are created in the wee hours of the morning because the writer, artist etc. have stepped outside of the blinkers of a structured life and feel something quite fresh and unfettered by the constraints of 'normal schedules'.

[davidlpf]

One thing I get to avoid at work is a lot of office politics because those are down mostly in the day because management tends to leave early in evening. Plus if had things to do during the day you can get those things done and you do not have to distracted while you work.

[Gillianren]

I had a friend in college who used to study her Greek late at night. I know this because we were coworkers on the school newspaper, and we worked late into the night once a week, when the paper was supposed to go to bed but the sports editor wouldn't show up until ten at night to start typing his articles. While I did have a creative job on the paper as well, I would be up proofreading until the small hours. Our layout people had to stay there as late as I did, because they, too, were waiting on the sports editor. (Who should have been fired, but anyway.)

Lots of people work better so late at night that it's early in the morning. It doesn't even matter what field it's in.

[Fazor]

Many of the athletes that I watch every day (Who also make more per year than I make per decade) are up very late. Late games followed by nights at the bar/club, or bus/plane rides to far-off cities. They're quite successful (well, some of 'em).

There were also some very well paid tech guys who worked on our server farm 3rd shift when I was with the state.

I'd also be willing to wager that many of the worlds most successful people often are up late, just because there's so much they have to do between work and social engagements.

[Tensor]

...I've never know anyone who was financially prosperous who stayed up late at night. So I wonder what factors about staying up late interfere with success in the practical side of life.
"

I'd be interested in knowing why you equate financially prosperity with success.

[Ara Pacis]

I'd be interested in knowing why you equate financially prosperity with success.

Unless one is a genius, success comes from conformity. Despite the numbers of fairly bright people on this board, the vast majority of the people in the world are less bright and do what they are told because that's what they can do.

[tashirosgt]

I'd be interested in knowing why you equate financially prosperity with success.

I suppose that if a person sets out to be poor then attaining financial prosperity is failure. However, I was thinking about people with the normal kind of aspirations.

There are people who aren't willing to follow the herd. They think independently. They set their own goals. In other words, they are just like everyone else. I've never met anyone who had a different self image. Why do people bother advertising that they fit this mold? It's so un-original.

On the other hand, I have never met a person who was interested in making money. By this, I mean that I have never met a person whose mind was flexible enough to be interested in making money with out other conditions.. Even if we take "legally" as a requirement, you still don't find unfettered minds. There are people who are interested in trading stocks, but they won't consider buying real estate. There are people who will deal in land but won't deal in rental property. There are people who will deal in rental property but they don't want to start any other kind of business. The idea that you often encounter people who are "only" interested in making money is baloney. They are quite rare.

[Ara Pacis]

On the other hand, I have never met a person who was interested in making money. By this, I mean that I have never met a person whose mind was flexible enough to be interested in making money with out other conditions.. Even if we take "legally" as a requirement, you still don't find unfettered minds. There are people who are interested in trading stocks, but they won't consider buying real estate. There are people who will deal in land but won't deal in rental property. There are people who will deal in rental property but they don't want to start any other kind of business. The idea that you often encounter people who are "only" interested in making money is baloney. They are quite rare.

This reminds me of a rant in Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land where he talks about someone wanting to make money. If I can badly paraphrase from memory: It doesn't take a lot to make lots of money, just a lifetime of dedication. There are some people who like to make money for the sake of making money. But most people don't want to make money, they want to spend money.

[Gillianren]

I suppose that if a person sets out to be poor then attaining financial prosperity is failure. However, I was thinking about people with the normal kind of aspirations.

Sigh. What was being referred to was people who are doing what they love, whether they make a lot of money at it or not.

[tashirosgt]

Sigh. What was being referred to was people who are doing what they love, whether they make a lot of money at it or not.

Likewise, I don't mean to define success purely in financial terms. If we define success as doing what one wants to do, then people who stay up late because they like the experience are succeeding by definition. A more stringent definition of success must specify some goal that in independent of sleeping habits. I offer my un-prosperous friends as examples of people who would like to be more prosperous. I offer the obstacles to designing a gate in the middle of the night as an example of how my own sleeping habits interfere with my carpentry (which is not an activity destined to produce any prosperity).

i agree that some people's goals don't require turning on an air compressor, coordinating with people on normal work schedules or shopping for parts. So these activities can be pursued in the middle of the night. However, I think that the two factors that I listed interfere with almost any project.

I like to work late at night because of the solitude and lack of interruption. I must admit why those things are useful. It's because I'm not good a concentrating.. I'm easily distracted. I also don't like to work under deadlines. I think many people stay up late because they share these disabilities.

[Ara Pacis]

I suppose that if a person sets out to be poor then attaining financial prosperity is failure. However, I was thinking about people with the normal kind of aspirations.

There are people who aren't willing to follow the herd. They think independently. They set their own goals. In other words, they are just like everyone else. I've never met anyone who had a different self image. Why do people bother advertising that they fit this mold? It's so un-original.

Having "the normal kind of aspirations" does not preclude acquiescing to conformity. I'm not sure if that's what you mean or the opposite of what you may mean.

People do think independently, they often arrive at the same conclusions for different reasons, or so they think. Thus, they can conform for different reasons but presume everyone else conforms because they are sheep, because they don't know the thought processes of the others. Thus, the illogical concept of being "more unique".

[Gillianren]

Likewise, I don't mean to define success purely in financial terms. If we define success as doing what one wants to do, then people who stay up late because they like the experience are succeeding by definition. A more stringent definition of success must specify some goal that in independent of sleeping habits. I offer my un-prosperous friends as examples of people who would like to be more prosperous. I offer the obstacles to designing a gate in the middle of the night as an example of how my own sleeping habits interfere with my carpentry (which is not an activity destined to produce any prosperity).

Surely happiness must be factored into any definition of success worth having. However, while I stay up until two every night, that does leave quite a lot of the day available for carpentry. Should I be so inclined. If I got my ideal job as a college professor at my alma mater, I might be able to teach nothing but afternoon classes. I would be teaching, I would be making a nice amount of money, enough to be self-sufficient, and I would be able to sleep according to my preferred schedule. That isn't success?

[Ara Pacis]

Of course, some people don't equate teaching to a measure of success. Hence the saying, "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach."

[Gillianren]

Of course, some people don't equate teaching to a measure of success. Hence the saying, "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach."

Yes. I've always felt the people who say it need to spend some time teaching so they know how difficult it is.