Midnight Oil

For current analysts: How do you boost your efficiency at 1am-3am and force your eyes and brain to focus on your work?

When I do school work until the wee hours of the morning, I get pretty damn tired and ultimately completely unproductive.

9 Comments
 
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Usually easier to stay up cranking than it is to stay up studying as well, at least for me it is. IMO much easier to stay stimulated when working on projects with different tasks and problems to solve than trying to digest/memorize a bunch of material that you may find boring in the first place.

 
Best Response

I completely agree with the above posters. Since I've started in banking, I haven't needed near as much caffeine as I thought I would. The combination or stress/pressure and the fact that you are cranking on a model or writing a book that is actually interesting makes it way easier to stay awake.

As a related question, when you guys get home after a late night, say between 2-4 AM, do you ever find it hard to just immediately go to sleep? I always find myself watching ESPN, snacking, surfing the net, or whatever for at least a half hour or so. Its really frustrating. Its like I can't just unwind.

 

Stress is the number one motivator that keeps me up. I generally find I drink to much caffeine trying to stay up all night, and when I try to take a nap around 5 or 6am the caffeine keeps my mind racing preventing me from sleeping. I try and limit my caffeine intake during long nights, but often find it hard to stay awake at 2am, and that is when I start drinking a lot of diet coke.

 
longshotI completely agree with the above posters. Since I've started in banking, I haven't needed near as much caffeine as I thought I would. The combination or stress/pressure and the fact that you are cranking on a model or writing a book that is actually interesting makes it way easier to stay awake.

As a related question, when you guys get home after a late night, say between 2-4 AM, do you ever find it hard to just immediately go to sleep? I always find myself watching ESPN, snacking, surfing the net, or whatever for at least a half hour or so. Its really frustrating. Its like I can't just unwind.

I do the same. Believe it or not, I actually like to read before going to sleep. Weird how that works.
 
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