When are you most alert?
dkarl: I'm most alert in the mid-morning, about an hour after I sit down at the computer.  My mind is active and energetic at that time, and I'm keenly aware of practical issues, such as schedules and customers.  This is the best time to prioritize my tasks and do straightforward design work.  I also spend this time figuring out what practical preparation needs to be done and making sure I have the resources (docs, working boxes, software tools, and so forth) to do it.  If there are any bugs or broken tools that will hold back my work, this is when I'm most likely to have the initiative to fix them.Later in the day I'm more theoretical and less practical.  This is when I crank out the LOC, when I'm relaxed into a groove and really inhabiting the world that I mapped out that morning.  I definitely don't get as much coding done when I'm super-alert.  The right state of mind for coding is entirely different from the right state of mind for grunt analysis and design work.  This can be a problem when I need to mode-switch back and forth between coding and analysis.  HOWEVER, really difficult design questions that require imagination are usually solved late in the day, in my relaxed, theoretical frame of mind.