What was the most popular day of week for contests?
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What was the most popular time of day for contests?

More details for 2020 about number of contents started between 14:00 and 15:00 Greenwich time

So 14:35 Greenwich time / 17:35 Moscow time is the most popular. It means it is 01:35 in Sydney and 07:35 in Calgary, for example. Anyway, it is always night time in half of the world:) But many users take part in contests from inconvenient time zones on regular basic. I think that there should be a special reward for loyalty to Codeforces.

This screen shot is done on https://www.worldtimezone.com/ exactly at 14:35 Greenwich time. I have added pointers to where my today's guests live.

-How you have managed not only to stay awake at this time but to solve problem as well?

Ali.Kh: Obviously my cf rating is so important to me (like most of the people :)) and so before each contest I have to see how I feel and if I'm ready to do the contest. Generally I believe that my mind performs better at night, but of course I try to be in an ideal situation before the contests. I do the following before each of the contests:

1- Take a nap for about an hour in the afternoon. It shouldn't be close to the contest time, otherwise it just affects the contest so badly.

2- Drink a cup of coffee 15-30 min before the contest. Also, eating something like a chocolate or banana helps (but this one is not really related to the time of the contest).

3- Also, my mind shouldn't be tired e.g. basically I don't do a contest after a busy day.

I hope this helps people living in Australia or anywhere who are struggling with the timing of the contests. :)

lookcook: Well obviously you need to get enough sleep, there is no way around that. I try to get at least 7h before rounds. Getting something small to eat before or during the round is helpful but isn't necessary. To not sleep through the round I use an alarm.

During the summer I had anxiety on taking rounds and would tell myself that I was too tired and I did not sleep well enough to take the round. If I forced myself to get out of bed I noticed that this sense of tiredness faded away as long as I got enough sleep, so that feeling is just me trying to avoid the round. To overcome this I adopted a mindset of taking every rated Codeforces round available to me.

Unfortunately some rare rounds are at disgusting times and you need to destroy your sleep schedule for a little while, nothing can be done prevent it. But its worth it for virtual rating on some website :)