Late-Night Hustle, Morning Regret: The Hidden Cost of Working Like a Firestarter

Oct 30, 2025

How our unmanaged energy burns more than just us

Lying in bed, mind racing. Inbox open. Texts flying. I'm dropping messages at 1, 2, 3am. I know I shouldn’t, but I tell myself it’s fine. Just a few more thoughts. A few more sparks.

Then morning hits. Everyone wakes up to a pile of pings and half-baked ideas. Now they’re scrambling, reacting, trying to catch up to my chaos like it’s a fire drill.

It felt like I was moving fast. But really, I was just lighting fires.

The Illusion of Momentum

Those late-night brainwaves? Not always bad. Sometimes they were even brilliant. But often they were impulsive.

There’s a difference between movement and momentum. I confused the two for years.

Just because your brain's lit up at night doesn’t mean the rest of the world should pay for it in the morning.

Turns out, my productivity was someone else’s panic.

The Emotional Backlash

I’d wake up later, maybe groggy. Meanwhile, my team’s already in motion—but often in the wrong direction.

Text threads were chaos. People misunderstood the message. Or worse, they dropped everything to respond at 7am.

Then came the shame, the regret. Sometimes defensiveness. And often, I’d rewrite the whole plan by noon.

I Underestimated Who I Was in the Business

I ran a creative digital agency and a game studio. The work was fun, fast, and highly addictive. Every new idea, pitch, or project win triggered a full-on dopamine feeding frenzy. We were doing what we loved, and that made it harder to slow down.

I looked at a lot of the people who worked with me as friends and creative partners. When I sent those idea starters or bursts of inspiration late at night, it wasn’t meant to light fires or force anyone to jump. A lot of times it was just me needing to get something out of my head before I lost it.

And it wasn’t just creative ideas either. Sometimes it was operational. How do we scale? How do we improve our systems? These weren’t always things that added direct value to a specific project. Sometimes it was long-term thinking, added value for the business as a whole, but completely disruptive to the "right now" of the business. During the day, we had work to deliver and clients to keep happy. Sometimes the only time to think through the guts of the operation was while lying in bed at 1am.

Sometimes it was emotional pressure that needed somewhere to go.

But I forgot something really important. I wasn’t just a friend or colleague. I was the owner, the founder, the CEO, and chief creative. Whether I meant it or not, when I sent something, it carried weight.

I should have known better.

Looking back, the expectations I put on myself? I should never have projected those on others. And I should have invested deeper in family time.

Our Rhythms Weren’t the Same

My rhythm wasn’t the same as my business partners. That became clear pretty fast. But we figured out how to play to each other's strengths.

What I wish I had done better was help manage boundaries. With our team, with their time, and with the way we pulled from their families.

We got the work done, but at what cost?

The Family Fallout

While I was burning the midnight oil, I was also burning time I could have used to sleep, to show up, to be present. My family didn’t get the productive genius version of me. They got the exhausted, distracted, short-tempered version.

I thought I was sacrificing for them. I was just absent in a different costume.

I wasn’t working hard for my family. I was working hard around them.

The Passion Problem

This isn’t about laziness. It’s about passion with no off-switch.

That inability to regulate drive, to set boundaries, that shows up a lot in entrepreneurial and creative brains. We chase the dopamine, the fix, the idea. And we justify it all as necessary.

But there’s a cost. And the people closest to us often pay it.

What I’m Learning to Do Instead

Delayed send. I still write it, but I schedule it for tomorrow.
Sleep first. Ship later. Ideas are usually better with rest.
Status = boundaries. Just because I’m up doesn’t mean they should be.
Ask, don’t assume. "Is this helpful right now?" vs. "Here’s ten new tasks."

I don’t want to be the guy who’s always one step ahead if it means everyone else is two steps behind cleaning up my mess.

Fire Can Warm or Destroy

Passion is fire. Unregulated, it burns.

But with structure, with intention, it can warm, illuminate, inspire.

I’m still learning the difference.

And I’m trying to be someone who builds with fire, not just starts it.

More From This ADHD Circus Tent

If this story made you nod, laugh, or aggressively point at your screen like “yes, that’s me”—you might like a few of these other brain-scrambled adventures from the creative trenches. Same flavor, same chaos, maybe even a duck metaphor or two.

When I Chased Money, It Ran. When I Chased My Craft, Everything Changed.
The ND Team That Saved My Agency Bacon Again and Again