I put mine on at midnight. Make sure the temp. is stable, then go to bed and get up at about 7 or so. I made some mods to my little cheap smoker and I can get about 255 for 13-15 hours on one fill of fuel. Once you get the smoker dialed in, it's pretty much just set it and forget it. (Other than spritzing and turning once)
The bark came out really nice on this one. I've started to spritz mine with apple juice pretty heavily every couple of hours after 6 or 7 hours in and it seems to set a really nice bark.