The night before I program the coffeepot, set out a coffee mug, and put out clothes. I set up my working space the night before, too. I put whatever books and notebooks I’ll need on my desk. I close my email and browser so I won’t be tempted by them. I open my “Morning Music” collection, and queue up a playlist. I write a list of things to focus on

The fact that I have ideas after mornings when I’ve been working, and don’t have them on mornings when I’ve slept in, suggests that a wandering mind only thinks hard about ideas that you’ve been working hard on. It only does its work if you’ve done yours.

If you “stop while you are going good and don’t think about it or worry about it until you start to write the next day,” Hemingway said, “your subconscious will work on it all the time.” John Le Carré says he’ll “always try to go to sleep before I finish working, just a little bit before. Then I know where I’ll go the next morning, but I won’t quit

Getting out in the fresh air, experiencing the world at another species' pace, and walking in companionable silence are healthy activities, but not automatically creative ones. I need to have just been working, to still have a problem echoing in my mind, in order to have a moment of insight.

early birds did better on the insight questions in the late afternoon, during their circadian lows, while night owns produced more insights in the morning.

The other critical thing I do the night before is stop in mid-sentence or mid-paragraph. It’s a technique that makes starting at 5 a.m. a little easier: instead of having to face the existential terror of the blank page, my first task is write a couple lines that complete last night’s thought.

Desk lights help keep the world small and visually quiet. My writing space is illuminated only by a desk lamp that throws a narrow beam; I keep the rest of the room in shadow, and avoid turning on overhead lights as long as possible. Narrow light reflects my state of mind: I want to be stay focused, keep distractions in the shadows, and be up but n

It’s also a world that’s social media-free. I never look at Facebook or Twitter in these early hours. They’re just not attractive to me in the pre-dawn hours. I don’t check work email, and generally don’t open my personal email, either. I want to keep this time reserved for what I need to do, not what others need me to do.

At 5 a.m., I can still feel the weight of sleep in my head— it feels like a blanket pressing down on my consciousness— but it’s light enough to let ideas flow. It’s worth spending the first part of my morning there. The fact that I’m not a morning person doesn’t impede my ability to work well in the early morning; in fact, it probably gives me a bo