I started off my daily writing streak here at night. Writing always felt right done at the end of the day, but recently due to parenting responsibilities, I had to switch to writing in the daytime, starting off after lunch but now increasingly in the mornings instead. It felt weird initially, but I’m now coming round to it. Here’s the pros and cons of day versus night:

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Day writing:

I feel fresh and have more energy. 

But if my sleep had been bad the previous night, my brain probably had not woken up yet.

Writing after lunch can be a bad idea if I ate too much and feel sleepy.

There’s still lots of stuff to do for the rest of the day so I don’t linger and dawdle.

But on flip side it can feel bothersome if I’m eager to start on other pieces of revenue-generating work for the day.

It’s a great way to get started for the day for me, writing had become a low to low-moderate cognitive task, so I likened it to warming up.

By nightfall, there’ll be some (mild) stress about completing my day’s writing before the window closes.Sometimes I cut it quite close, publishing only at past 11:30pm.

More time for family and other random stuff in evenings and nights, without any nagging feeling. 

Sometimes harder to think of what to write, as there’s no inspiration from a day passed (somehow sleep resets the day so thinking back about the day before doesn’t quite work).

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Night writing:

Easier to get writing inspiration from all manner of media and experience that you consumed during the day.

It’s quieter at night, most are asleep. Silence is key to introspecting.

Slightly stressful about breaking my streak if I write too close to the deadline.

Yet my work is done for the day, so there’s no impending tasks that’s nagging at me, and I can focus on the writing and introspecting.

Less time for family.

Hard to get inspired to write if I’m exhausted at the end of the day.

More time to reflect more, write longer pieces. 

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So re-looking at the list of pros and cons, it’s clearer to me now (from writing it down) that there’s some situations where writing at night will be more beneficial, especially say during monthly reviews or wrap-ups where I get to spend more time reflecting and writing. 

So perhaps I can adopt a mixed 80:20 or 90:10 approach, and set aside 10-20% of the days in a month for key milestones where I can write at night. 

Do you prefer to write in the day, or at night? Why?