Alain de Botton, philosopher

At 10.04pm last night I was thinking about how my sons (aged two and four) would feel about their childhoods in 20 years' time. I was thinking about what sort of things might go wrong in my relationship with them, because something always tends to, and yet I was still able to hope for the best. Between 5am and 6.30am and between 10pm and midnight are by far the most productive times for me - because there's no expectation. The best ideas invariably come after a lengthy period of concentrated thinking that has been a disaster. I give up, throw myself on a bed and decide to give up for ever. About 10 minutes later, a decent idea may then - on a good day - pop into my head.

Alex Kapranos, lead singer, Franz Ferdinand

I was sitting in Berlin at 10.04pm with an old friend I hadn't seen for a couple of years. She was filling me in on some gossip about a mutual friend and his love of wearing ladies' silk underwear. Nothing creative or intellectual, but I loved the story. Then I wrote our next album.

Shami Chakrabarti, director, Liberty

I was having a tortured and mundane conversation with my husband about what we're going to do over the Christmas holidays. So that's quite disappointing, although my BlackBerry does suggest that I was being very creative and active a few minutes earlier, sending emails about a new campaign, Common Values, we're working on - to explain the Human Rights Act to people who are hostile towards it. Just after 10pm is a good time for me. My son has gone to bed, I have had dinner and I think my best ideas come when I'm relaxed, so that will often be relatively late. Did we manage to sort out Christmas? No, the discussions continue.

Marc Quinn, artist

I was thinking about whether to have sushi or sashimi at a Japanese restaurant, but that was a creative decision: it affected how I felt for the rest of the evening. I went for sashimi. My most creative times of the day come at random; it can be waking up at 5am and lying there thinking, or in the middle of the day. I think it's about being open to having ideas at any time of the day. I get ideas from looking at things, or just lying down with my eyes closed and letting my mind wander.

Zandra Rhodes, fashion designer

I was packing up at the rehearsal of Aida - I have designed the sets and costumes for the opera at the Coliseum, which opens this week. I was going through last-minute thoughts. At that moment, I was double checking that the cloak looked OK on Amneris for the judgment scene. Normally at 10.04pm, I would be out at dinner. If you're among inspiring friends or you've just been to see a great play, I suppose you could have your most creative ideas at that time, but then you'd need to rush into work to do the practical side. But I'm a morning person - I don't often work into the night.

Sebastian Faulks, author

At 10.04pm on Monday I was thinking what I think at 10.04pm most nights: whether to open another bottle of wine. At that time of day I am usually either talking to people or watching the BBC News. It is a good time of day, but not a creative one. If ideas come, they tend to come when I'm asleep, or first thing in the morning or last thing at night. Mostly, though, they come when you hold a gun to their head and tell them to come, and that would be at the desk during the course of the working day. Between 11 and one, or five and seven, would probably be good places to start.

Roy Williams, playwright

I was on the tube, on my way home, thinking about the wonderful production of The Brothers Size I had seen at the Young Vic. Seeing good work always inspires me. There was a wonderful scene involving the use of the Otis Redding song, Try a Little Tenderness, that had me smiling and a clever device where the actors would speak the stage directions. I had decided then I was going to steal these ideas. All writers are thieves.

I am a morning person. I love waking up with a solution to a script problem I had the night before. My most creative times are between 8am and 1pm. I work non-stop, but always begin the day with an hour of quality TV drama from one of my beloved box sets.

Sharon Horgan, comedian

I set my alarm so I could find out exactly what creative thoughts I was having at that special time, but I was surprised to find that I was thinking about the episode of Katie & Peter: The Final Chapter I'd seen the night before. I was pretty disappointed by that because I was hoping for an idea for a film or a new invention or something. I usually hit my stride creatively at about 1.40pm. I panic when I realise I've been sitting at my laptop for three hours and done fuck-all. A lot of my work is done in a creative panic. I do sometimes think of solutions to difficult storylines or funny stuff when I'm lying in bed at night and I pop them into my BlackBerry, which I keep beside my bed. A bit like Madonna.

Edward Gardner, musical director, English National Opera

Last night I was sitting at my desk learning the score for Boris Godunov, which I will be conducting. Today is our first orchestral rehearsal and it opens in three weeks. I must have been concentrating very hard because I started at 9.30pm and the next time I looked at the clock it was 10.30pm, so for someone with quite a short attention span that's pretty good. It has got completely under my skin, I really love it. I like working in the evenings because it's such a peaceful time. If I'm conducting, I'll be on stage at 10.04pm, heading towards the end of the opera. If it's going well, you feel incredibly focused at that time.

Margaret Drabble, author

I am usually asleep by then, or in bed and not at my best. My best time is walking at five or six in the evening on a summer's day. I get nearly all my ideas walking in the early evening or late afternoon, but in bed, never.

Stephen Bayley, cultural commentator

I was making egg-fried rice. I'd love to tell you I was having the most amazing epiphany but it simply isn't true. I felt I couldn't sit around urging a creative moment just for the sake of it - I was wondering if I should use one egg or two. I do like doing things in the kitchen, I find it quite zen-like, but I usually get my best ideas in one of two places - either on an airplane where I'm so fidgety and restless it forces me to think about things and I always carry a notebook to scribble in, or when I go for a run. I usually go running in the evening - though never as late as 10pm - and I find it generally productive, maybe it's because of a lack of oxygen to the brain or something.

Philip Pullman, author

I was thinking about what I was watching on the TV news, which was the story about the Christian aid worker killed in Afghanistan - a perfect example of how religion inspires both good and evil, and evil wins. In general I work best in the morning. But that may be just the result of habit.

Edward Stourton, presenter, Today programme

Last night at that time I was thinking about finding my hire car in Toulouse airport car park. But usually I would be asleep. I go to bed at 8.30pm or 9pm because I have to get up at 3am to get to work on the Today programme. I have to say I am the least inspirational person at 10 o'clock. I think my most creative time is at 6am. It may be partly because my brain has adjusted to that time, because that's the minute we go on air. But even on days when I'm not recording, if I sit down at my desk between 6am and 7am, that's when I'm at my best.

Linda Grant, author

Just before 10pm last night I went to turn off my computer, and I found an email that required answering. It was from someone who wanted to know at what times I might be free in Toronto, where I will be next week. At 10.03pm I sent the email and turned the computer off. At 10.04pm, my thought was: "Ah, I think I'll just listen to The World Tonight." I suppose 10.04pm can provide a eureka moment, but it depends what you're doing: sometimes you're already fast asleep, sometimes you're rat-arsed. For creative activity, the most productive times are when you're closest to sleep - either after you've just woken up, or when you're just settling down. That's when the mind relaxes.

Richard Eyre, film and theatre director

10.04pm is a very curious time. It certainly wouldn't be my peak time for ideas - not least because I usually eat late and have a few glasses of wine. If I'm working in the theatre the show has generally finished or is finishing around then. If I'm filming I'll be preparing for the next day so I might be hoping for a brilliant idea around 10.04pm but am probably too tired to think. I have my best ideas in bed on the edge of sleep: the difficulty is to remember them in the morning or to write them down at the time of having them, which drives away sleep. So not encouraged. The best time for me is early in the morning - around 8am. Then I'm fresh and optimistic and everything is possible.

Naomi Alderman, author

I was in my bedroom. I'd been chatting online to a friend about a gig I went to, swapping jokes. I suddenly got a bit restless. Maybe it's the flipping over from nine-something, which is clearly "evening" to 10-something: "suitable for an early night" that does it. I stretched, walked around the room, looked out of the window. I watched the people wandering past. I can't say I had a brilliant idea, but leaving the computer would have put me in a good place to get one; good ideas come up when you move between tasks. Perhaps 10pm, the time when we move from day to night, really could be especially good for ideas. I like the idea that there's a time for ideas every day. Maybe I'll get a great idea tomorrow.

Jenny Colgan, author

I was thinking about Pat Kavanagh [the literary agent who died on Monday], as I imagine were most of your writers. I usually just feel sleepy at that time and never work at night, but I do find my mind quite buzzy. Annoyingly, it comes out in a pointless - and embarrassing - way: I will start writing in my head an elaborate synopsis for whatever TV series I'm currently watching. I have pretty thorough episodes for the West Wing Season Two, The Wire Season Three and the Martha Jones series of Doctor Who. It's a terrible waste of creative energy; I have two pilots in development and two books on the go and should really be thinking about them. But it gets me to sleep.

Antony Beevor, historian

I am afraid that I did not take an alarm clock to dinner, so I cannot record precisely my thoughts at 10.04pm last night, but while we were chatting with friends, my brain was working in the background or on a subconscious level, tackling the problems I had with the final chapter of my book on D-Day and the Battle for Normandy. My wife had been through the chapter before we went out and made some very telling points about cuts and construction, and by the time we arrived home, I was clear on what needed to be done.

Michael Berkeley, composer

I was in the green room of the Wigmore Hall having just left the stage following a concert largely of my music, so, as is usually the case at that time of night, I was savouring the fruits of creativity rather than being creative. I tend to be a morning person and like to get down on to paper what may, or may not, be the machinations of the subconscious, post-sleep. 10.04pm is therefore more a time for thoughts of recreation, procreation - anything but the misleading confidence of (even slightly) alcohol-fuelled work that will probably have to be junked the next morning under the harsh rays of reality at 10.04am.

Ekow Eshun, artistic director, ICA

I had the news on TV and I was reading the new John Updike book, The Widows of Eastwick. I'm reviewing it on Newsnight Review, so I was trying to think about it. I was also thinking about conversation I'd had earlier that evening with Dennis Hopper, because he'd been giving a talk at the ICA - I remember thinking I was quite surprised how elastic his mind was, the way it flicks from art to film to photography. It's the kind of mind I'd like ·

Nick Clegg, leader, Liberal Democrats

I was coming back from a dinner with economic experts. I began to think about the danger of the environment being left behind as the economy worsens. High energy bills are an environmental problem as well as an economic one. We have to think creatively. Why is it that people are charged more for the initial amount of energy they use? Turning this tariff structure on its head would encourage people to use less energy and help the poorest who use less already. Now there's a simple idea all economists can surely agree on.

On the web

Were you creative last night at 10.04pm?
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