I was a night-owl for many years–loved it. But with kids and projects and all the daytime and nighttime responsibilities, I no longer have the luxury of staying up till 3AM. So, over a period of about a month, I transformed from a night owl to early bird, rising between 5:00 and 5:30 to work on things for which I need plenty of time and (quiet) space.
Sometimes, especially on weekends, the night owl emerges, and I find myself up way past my bedtime with the house still and the sounds of exhales from the rest of my household in slumber. There’s something beautiful about the nighttime silence–something that gets my creativity going. Here are some things I (still) love about being a night owl:
1. It’s quiet: When you’re up past midnight, it’s likely you’re alone and the rest of the family is in bed. It’s peaceful. One can get a lot of thinking done with such peace and quiet. It’s one of the only times of day when one can get some real deep thinking and creating done–all that beautiful quiet. The best is not to try to fill it with anything; but if you’re inclined to fill it, to me there’s nothing like a late night jazz radio show–the sound of the city is what I call it. There’s also the late-night radio shows about bizarre phenomena, things that are too uncanny to listen to and take seriously during the light of day. But I’ll just stick with the quiet.
2. Nurturing: This might be a cheezy way of putting it, but there’s a way in which the night has a cozy factor–it’s a time when blankets can be placed over you while you’re huddled over a book, TV or computer screen. This kind of coziness is a by-product of peace and quiet. To me, there’s nothing like putting this coziness in tension with a thriller novel or spy movie. One of the best moments like this was reading Joseph Conrad’s classic ‘Heart of Darkness’ while under the covers at 1AM–something about drifting along the river of the Congo on some strange voyage while also being nurtured by the warm duvet of bed.
3. Productivity: As mentioned, you can get a lot done when there’s no one to bother you. As well, the darkness of night provides a frame of deep focus–you’re not distracted by salubrious sunbeams or frolicking squirrels across your roof, or bird songs out your window. You’re in flow. The night can bring on flow, real flow. There’s no other sound but the tapping of your computer keys or the scratch of your pen or pencil along the notebook. There’s a reason why many creatives love to create at night.
4. Nowhere to go: You have nothing scheduled at this time–it’s time out of (scheduled/arranged) time. As such, you can relax, be in the moment, think, do. This is an important thing, for many of us use schedules and meetings and busy-ness to distract us from our creative work–what Steven Pressfield calls ‘resistance’. This resistance is a killer of creativity, which is why, again, a lot can get done after hours.
5. Stretch the day out: If you feel you don’t have enough hours in the day, usurp your usual 10PM bedtime for 1:30AM. There is indeed a sense that night owls have that the day is something whose every droplet one must squeeze and drain out. This is a way to truly seize the day. Need to stretch it out even more, pull a full all-nighter then get dressed, quaff down a quad espresso and head back out to work. You’ll notice that you won’t be that tired, and in fact you’ll be in a heightened state of awareness.
6. Sleep is better: When you hit the hay after a late-night work session, and you’re head feels like it’s going to split open, and your heart is beating heavy, the bed just feels that much better. Sleep after a time of creative productivity is sweet indeed.
7. New ideas: There is something strange that happens when you’re up late–you have different kinds of insights. It’s like the profound fatigue you’re feeling opens up another dimension of thinking. Many of us are too into our routines and schedule and obligations to engage in deep creative thinking. But when you’re up late and wandering around your place while everyone else is sleeping, your mind takes all that it was filled with over the course of the day and starts amalgamating it together–similar to what happens in dreams. It’s pulling yourself outside of your day that the ideas start to congeal. This is the zone of insight.
8. Sleep in: Night owls tend to sleep in more, which creates the conditions for fresher ideas. There’s something about lying around in bed that gets the brain moving and conjoining all kinds of disjointed thoughts. I find laying around an extra hour in bed in the morning to be very productive–if I have a notebook near by. And that’s the key: keep a notebook handy to jot everything down in. Your phone or tablet’s not good enough–you need a notebook and pen or pencil; for there’s something important about the kinetic act of writing than simply tapping on a piece of glass that gives you greater insight.
9. Be in good company: By becoming a night owl, you can join the ranks of Charles Darwin, Winston Churchill, and yes even Keith Richards. There is an entire history of night owls–those who have plumbed the depths of night to emerge with great jewels of creativity and imagination.
10. Noctambulism: If you want to read something interesting about night owls, read about Charles Dickens’s night walks, or those of William Blake and other noctambulists. There is indeed an art to walking at night, and there are many artists and creatives who relished their times wandering the streets at night: the city lights, the late-night cafes and bookshops, the theatres–the energy of it all. At least on one occasion, Dickens was known to have walked the entire night–a feat that left him energized yet exhausted.
Kultur Design Blog 