[andai]

I often hear "The first hour is the rudder of the day."

In my case, it's "The first hour is the time during which my neurotransmitters are still mostly present."

I'd also expand energy to attention, or maybe even "mental space".

I notice that I'm able to think much more clearly when I don't fill my mind with random clutter. (i.e. when I make an effort to stay away from my phone for at least an hour.)

[HPsquared]

Biologically, my typical morning is like waking the laptop to find it's at 1% battery and plugging it in to try and recharge, while a bunch of deferred windows updates come in.

By evening, everything has finally stabilised.

[jcul]

Yeah I'm the same, I find I start being really productive in the afternoon / evening.

Unfortunately having kids is incompatible with this, so it's been flipped and I just struggle through the morning.

[arethuza]

I have to be careful for the first hour or so of work - I get up at 6am and walk my dog for an hour and start work about 8:30 - by that point I am fairly heavily caffeinated (I am not a natural morning person) and I can be inclined to rant at people ;-)

[mschuster91]

For me, it's just the other way around. First hours are a time where I'm barely a functional human being. Working against one's chronotype is horrible, but good luck trying to explain to capitalism you're the nocturnal type.