Night Owl Creative Peak
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Sam Parr and Shaan Puri discuss how working late at night can be more conducive to creative work, sharing experiences about productivity patterns and the benefits of working during unconventional hours.
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Late Night Productivity Sweet Spot:
- Best creative work happens between midnight to 3-4 AM
- Brain enters a "loopy" state that enhances creativity
- Fewer distractions and interruptions during these hours
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Daytime Activities as Preparation:
- Use daytime for:
- Conversations
- Managing people
- Reading
- Working out
- General exhaustion of mental energy
- Goal is to get brain to "slow down" for creative work later
- Use daytime for:
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Creative Work Benefits:
- Half-sleepy state enables:
- Better flow state
- More serendipitous thinking
- Enhanced ability to explore different ideas
- Improved creative output (programming, copywriting)
- Half-sleepy state enables:
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Night Owl Success Examples:
- Aaron Levy (Box CEO):
- No meetings until 11 AM
- Works until 5 AM
- Built multi-billion dollar company with this schedule
- Going "against the grain":
- World is set up for early risers
- Night owls need to adapt despite system preferences
- Potentially genetic (referenced 23andMe attribute)
- Aaron Levy (Box CEO):
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Key Insight:
- Success isn't about conforming to traditional schedules
- Find your natural rhythm and optimize around it
- Creative work benefits from specific mental states that may occur at unconventional hours
Sam Parr
Host of MFM and fitness influencer
Sam Parr is a serial entrepreneur and business media pioneer.
In 2016, he founded The Hustle, a business news media company that started in his kitchen with just $12 and grew to eight figures in revenue.
Sam led the charge in making newsletters popular when few believed in their potential.
After four successful years, he sold The Hustle to HubSpot, a publicly traded company. Now operating as HubSpot Media, The Hustle reaches 3 million readers daily, employs a team of nearly 100, and has been the launchpad for dozens of its staff to found their own media companies and newsletters.
Sam remains the host of the popular business podcast, My First Million, and continues to start and sell companies. He also co-founded Hampton, a highly vetted community for entrepreneurs, founders, and CEOs, and teaches people to write better through his platform, Copy That.