I wish you the best of luck, and the only way is UP! :)
Honestly, I don't think the time matters as much as one could think.. Obviously, I believe time matters to get that "fluke results" so to speak.. But one shouldn't aim for that kind of results at all. When you've built your reputation and when you become more established, then I don't think time matters at all.
You could look at "catchawhale" to spot the whales, but I wouldn't bother with that too much, as I truly believe that could actually have a negative impact on you. Just think of it this way. You look at catchawhale and see ALL the whales being active. They've been active for 1 minute and just started to upvote peoples NEW content.. What if you posted yours at that time.. And NONE of them upvoted your post.. I believe that would have a huge negative impact and I believe that would hurt you more than anything. Especially if you did this several times and never got any upvotes.