Sleepless Nights

I am just curious whether it is common among web developers / programmers to work to much thus resulting in sleepless nights.

For me personally there are a number of reasons why I am still sat here at 4:15 am writing this thread:

A) I run my own business's single handedly and thus have a lot of work.

B) I love to code, especially at night because there are no distractions, I can just sit back, turn on the radio, ensure there is a coffee by my side and I can go on for hours, whereas in the daytime I get distracted a lot more with every day life.

C) My fiance lives in Brazil so due to the time difference between the UK and Brazil I am often up until 1 - 2 am chatting with her anyway so it becomes pointless going to sleep.

D) I always worry about money, yes lots of work = lots of money, but I am the kinda guy who always looks to the future and thinks hey I don`t have enough money for that, I better earn it now so I am safe etc rather than taking each bill as it arrives.

E) I tend to take on more work than I can handle alone, so end up staying up late to keep up with deadlines.

F) I am currently single errr no better not say that the fiance reads these boards I'm ummm alone so I don`t have anyone watching over me and making sure that I get off this computer and put down my books for a good time elsewhere. BTW: This whole situation will change for me soon as I'm getting married in December, so I will have to adjust back to normal 9 - 5 life as there is no way my fiance would let me work all night. (She craves my body to much

So are these common problems in the developers / programmers community?

Are there any tips from people who have had this lifestyle and then had to adjust back to a 9-5 life?

Editor's Note: Yet another thread in an attempt to satisfy AlCapone's need for discussion

I was up until 4 am the other Friday because I started coding some stuff while my gf slept. After she woke up and left, I came running back to the code ....

I was up until 2:30 last night doing homework which caused my pulse rate this morning to be rather erratic, thus eliminating me from blood donation which I was signed up for...

I'll be getting home tonight around 10 - 10:30. I'll talk to my gf for awhile, open up a tab on these boards, and start rifling about in dreamweaver and writing up some perl... so.. no sleep, no problem (as long as the reason I'm not sleeping is sex, coding, or food ).

i also love to work at night since as silky pointed out there's less distractions and i get a lot more work done. but, since i dont have my own business and work for a regular company, i rarely get to do work at night anymore.

Yeaha! Finally something besides <? and #! on devshed hehe

Nowdays I have *a lot* of speeless nights, but the reason for them not web developmet if you know what I mean

Yesterday was an exception though. I was hosting a php meetup in melbourne, AU, so I spent most of my evening, as usual, at downdown. But this time I was talking to a couple of biz owners and book writers. I've meet authors of PHP and MySQL Web Development and co-authors of PHP5, nice people (husband and wife btw, so silky you might doing some family biz soon). Then I went off riding around the city with a.. erm.. person 'till we came to some party around local uni. That's the end of my memories for last night. And yeah, I slept all the way through my alarm this morning and missed my appointment at one place

Actually I haven't coded a single commercial app for past 2 months - just some' like graphs of net usage/time/session # for local dial up isp, but its for me and couple other guys who want it. So if anyone feels like sparing a project or two - I'm all ears

Bottom line - Melbourne life rocks, so does web development, I'm looking for job, silky is helleva luckier then me - his girl is going to marry him while mine is moving to sydney, sleepless nights are exausting and my uptime is 60 days, 13 hours and a couple of mins

I have a great system.... Stay awake and code for 36 hours then go to sleep for 12 hours, repeat as needed. This method works brilliant......

LoL I have actually used this method quite a few times, the problem with me is that I wake up and feel like I have missed out to much after having slept for such a long period.

Al, what are these meetings actually like?

I did try and get involved with a group here in the UK once (www.phpuk.org) but back then I was a bit of a newbie and they rather snubbed me out because I wasn`t as knowledgeable as them about PHP. There meetings always seemed to be a failure, people never showed, including guests like people who have written books ect. So I gave up on them and never looked back, I dunno it might be a bit better now, but I kinda have a personal motto that I won`t get involved with people who think of themselves higher than someone else. I now beleive I am a much better coder than them and thus if the situation were reversed and they came to me I would snub them out in the same way they did to me a couple of years ago. But I guess I'll have to write a book or something first hehe.

Smooth, actually I too was quite sceptical about going to one more php meeting. Fortunately, people who came this time were very friendly and well educated. Most of them were in the business since '97, right during the boom. They were on the wave all this time, but I did not notice any sort of "I am better then you" attitude. We had a friendly discussion for about 1.5 hours, had some coffee, dropped by subway and split at about 9pm.

I think this is just a good way to meet new people in your area who have same job as you and tie some contacts. For example, one guy from meeting has more project then he can handle, so I offered my help and he's thinking about it. Like they say, no one has ever died from having too many friends

me too, and i web dev isnt even my job! i just go on for hours cause its fun, and then in the morning i always wondered why the f*** did i stay up that late?!? late at night and soon as i wake up is the best time for me.. i can actually think straight in the morning hehe..

i wish there are php conferences in vancouver bc (canada).. tho im no pro, but wouldnt mind meeting/learning from people that shares the same interests.. maybe i can put my foot into this field, i wouldnt mind doing some work just for the experience..

There is nothing better than having Cup of Tea + Bryan Adams' Music + PC to code PHP, after 12 of night !!!!!!

and earlier, I had problem that my mom used to shout a lot @ me for my nightouts but somehow, I used to manage. Though I guess it might be more difficult for you, Silky.

And talking about those groups, AFAIK, There are none in my country (India) , hm...that gives me idea of starting one myself !!! What you ppl suggest ?

JD

Bryan Adams??????

You think that's bad? Sometimes I listen to Tool while I'm coding.

Jdk.. why not? What's the worst that could happen? If noone comes, you could always just talk to yourself

brian adams isnt bad, although i tend to fall alseep when i listen to that kind of music late at night.. now tool, its just a distraction hehe

jdk, Bryan Adams, -->

Lol, I have an alternation of Creed and Elton John. Elton John when the wife is awake and blasting Creed and slamming beers when the wife is sleeping........

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You know, I would love to put together a nice php meetup within the atlantic area here, or should I say within the surrounding states of my city. I see quite a few people on the boards here from PA (PHP Master RodK) and a few from VA and MD. I would love to put together something, and forget the coffee and donuts crap, i'm talk'n beer and charter fishing (lol). Wonder how hard it would be to setup a group of professionals for something like that, and say meetup twice a year for an all out party. I could provide quite a bit of the funding.............