Why Do the Best People Learn When Nobody Is Watching?

Shane Parrish says the best people in the world learn in the dark hours. Nobody is watching, there is no boss, and the field does not matter. The work happens after 5 p.m., and it can be 10 at night. The session is an Excel spreadsheet, a wave, or whatever the craft is. Failure has no consequences, so playing and learning happen in the same stretch. He does not like being bad in public. When he skis, he gets far from the chairlift and iterates in the woods, out of sight.

The privacy is how a craft gets honed. Steven Kotler keeps the same kind of privacy on a different clock. He starts writing around 4 a.m., because nobody owns the hours from 4 a.m. to 7 a.m. When he was a poor West Coast reporter, East Coast editors called early and every request became an instant yes, so the work he cared about had to be finished before the phone rang.