“Creative hour” is the time during your day, when you are most creative. It’s worth to spend some time to get familiar with the term, find out when is your creative hour and use it to your advantage.

A decade ago my life organization used to be very chaotic: working long hours, being stressed about work constantly and never knowing if and how much time for rest I will have each day. One thing I always noticed though, is that at some point during the day I have really good ideas and at the same time I am less focused and more clumsy than usual. I was wondering what is the reason and discussed it with my fellow students. It turned out that they had similar observations: there is a time during the day, when they are able to connect concepts that would otherwise seem unrelated, and they also noticed that it usually happens in their least favorite time of the day- when they are most likely to break a cup of coffee or forget about some important thing they were supposed to do. If confirmed and tamed, this phenomenon would be a powerful tool, I imagined, especially for writing my Master Thesis.

I’ve started a journal to track my diet, activities, feelings, drugs and condition. Took me 2 weeks to get results. Not surprisingly I felt the best in the afternoon and my least favorite time of the day was early morning (especially lectures at 8AM) and my favorite part of the day was late evening. I found it difficult to get out of bed early. I hated eating breakfast. I felt sleepy after big meal, I felt strong in the afternoon. I hated waking up early. I was most energetic and focused in the afternoon. I was definitely a nocturnal animal. I’ve found a measure to track my creativity levels (writing a short story). I was most creative in the early morning! I always had wonderful ideas during morning showers, I used to attribute that to the effects of hot water and relax, but I have confirmed that the same shower has no such effect in the evening.

I started using this knowledge and had great success with it. I felt like I have just discovered an unlimited supply of free doping. Writing master thesis using my “creative time” was a breeze. I’m still repeating this evaluation when my environment and lifestyle changes, as my creative time changes.

There is more research about our biological clocks today, but we still don’t know much about how our body and mind work. Your research has to be empirical and it will take some time to identify your power hours and your creative hours, but trust me- it’s worth it. Being able to utilize your creative potential will help you in every part of your life.

Once knowing when you are creative, you have to adjust your daily routine to benefit from it. For example if it is in the early morning (before breakfast, coffee or cigarette),  you should not play video games then. Leave it for when you are more focused and your motor skills are better.  Use morning to read and reply to feedback or idea emails from your employees instead, write a letter to your family, write up your ideas, design something or draft an article. If you are in the middle of an important project, use this time for improving it by invention.

Good luck!