We don’t have to be up at the break of dawn to go hiking to totally nail our day.
Before looking at habits, goals, or how you motivate yourself to get the most out of every day, there is one simple question to ask yourself. This question (and your response) is a precursor to high productivity.
What Neuroscience Tells Us
Matthew Walker is a neuroscientist who wrote the international best-seller, “Why We Sleep”.
According to Walker, “morning types” make up about 40% of the population. Morning people like to wake up at dawn, enjoy doing so, and are productive in the early hours. On the other hand, “evening types” account for 30% of people. They revel in going to bed late, burning the midnight oil and rising late in the morning (maybe even afternoon).
The balance of people lie somewhere in between and often can switch between the two. All of these patterns come under the category of chronotypes.
These types matter because, based on Walker’s research, insufficient sleep (which is less than six or seven hours) can result in a whole lot of bad outcomes, including a diminished immune system, reduced blood sugar levels, and even anxiety.
Adequate sleep is influenced by whether you’re a morning or evening person, because your chronotype type affects when waking and sleeping time is most effective for you.
What If You’re Not A Morning Person?
Many of society’s routines and rhythms (getting up earlier, working breakfasts, being at work by 9am) are geared toward morning types.
In the last few years many articles have lauded the superhuman routines of business leaders who favour rising early in the morning. In many of these articles, there is a hidden assumption – to work hard equals getting up early. It’s simply not the case.
It would be easy for “evening types” to feel like they’re doing something wrong. Evening types may even try to follow the same routines, even if it defies what comes naturally. If they do this, they run the risk of feeling average, fatigued during the day, and ultimately unsettling their productivity.
So, if you are an evening person, don’t fret just yet… a good portion of the world is saying:
“Hey, it’s okay to take your time. Do what works best for you. When morning people are winding up for the day, you’ll be hitting your stride!”
Take comfort in the stories that run counter to the morning trends.
Jeff Bezos, for example, takes his time in the morning. He prefers to get a good sleep rather than wake when the rooster crows. And he often wakes naturally, without an alarm clock. His mornings are spent getting ready for the day. In his words, he likes to ‘putter’ about.1)
But there are limits for everyone. For example, if evening people stay up too late, they’ll still risk fatigue during their work day.
The key is not to overlook what our body tells us (regardless of whether you are a morning, evening or in-between type), so we start the day on the right foot. No habit exists that will change our outcomes if we start the day in the wrong state of mind and body.
I’m an in-between type, with a gentle bias toward evenings. When a friend of mine had a goal to hit the gym at 5:30am, I wanted to support them enough to change my routine for a while. I did this with extra planning, so I could prepare myself for the change and respecting the fact I’d likely find it difficult.
I went to bed earlier. I drank two glasses of water when I woke up. I was patient with my body whilst it woke (whereas my friend went hard in the gym straight away, and I allowed myself time to slowly get into the workout).
When I was trialling this new routine, someone recommended I go for a walk or do some light reading in the afternoons to re-energise. I was amazed what a difference this subtle technique made. Doing it this way, I worked within my “type” for 2 months so I could support my friend, without becoming fatigued at all.
So which type feels most natural to you? Morning, evening or in-between?
Much Is Still To Be Learnt In This Area
We are really just starting to understand the impact of morning and evening cycles on productivity.
In 2016, researcher Nolan Pope from MIT conducted a curious study. Pope reviewed a data set of 2 million students from seventh through to eleventh grade.2)
Matching school start times with student GPA and state test scores, Pope found having a morning class of either math or English increased students GPA by a significant amount. The results suggest that moving certain activities to the morning, from the afternoon, is enough to deliver big gains in productivity and performance over the longer term.
If we extended this to company settings, we might choose to do important planning exercises or our own individual thinking in the morning. Again, Jeff Bezos is an example. He plans his most intellectually demanding meetings at 10am.3)
Pope’s research gives insights into whether mornings or afternoons may be best suited to complex cognitive tasks. It would be tempting to generalize these learnings to say we are all more productive in the morning. But taking into account the distinction of morning and evening types, there may be such a thing as too early in the morning.
How Leaders & Companies Can Put These Lessons Into Practice
These lessons have important implications for companies, teams and individuals. Recently I’ve met with a dozen different companies to understand how they structure their work days. All of them had embraced flexible working hours for their people. But only a handful had also equipped their people with the tools to make flexible hours even more effective.
The most progressive companies established a culture of no meetings before 9:30am and no meetings after 4:30pm, to better cater for both morning and evening types. Some early or late meetings are unavoidable, but the best companies treated these as the exception, instead of the norm.
What are your experiences? I’d be keen to hear. Please consider sharing your thoughts by adding a comment below.
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