I often tell people that anyone who wants to hire me to work from 9 to 5 is getting ripped off. I’m only half-joking. See, my most productive hours are from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. The schedule on which much of the working world seems to run can be stifling to some people, because it conflicts with their body’s natural rhythms.
Finding your most productive time of day is a pretty big deal, especially if you can manage to schedule your most important tasks during those hours. I’m not a doctor — isn’t it fun how often I get to say that on the Task Blog? — but I’ll do my best to explain how I figured out that I totally suck at working “normal” hours.
I started by asking myself …
How Much Sleep Do I Need?
Different bodies need different amounts of rest. You can figure out how much you need to sleep by using a little guess-and-check, keeping a record of your sleep habits and how you feel, or even tracking down a sleep specialist to help you. I personally do all right on 5 or 6 hours, but I have friends and colleagues who are useless without 9 or 10.
How Long Does it Take Me to Wake Up?
Due to variations in brain chemistry, those mythical “morning people” that third-rate office comedians love to bring up actually do exist. Some people just wake up more quickly than others. If you know you’re useless for the first hour or two after you crawl out of bed, don’t fight it. Just do your best to tackle those concentration-intensive tasks later in the day.
When Do I Want to Eat?
We all need food, but large meals have the dual effect of taking up time when we eat them and slowing us down a bit later. One option is to eat breakfast soon after you wake up, when you’re still too groggy to be productive anyway, and then kick some mid-morning productivity butt on a full stomach. It’s a bit harder to be productive after a big lunch, especially if you’ve expended plenty of brainpower on your important tasks early in the morning.
You may not know the answers to all of these questions without a little bit of experimentation to find out what works for you, so you may also have to …
Keep Good Records
Pay attention to how much sleep and food you’re getting, and when you’re getting it. Write it down if you’d like. From there, just tweak your habits until you get it right, noting any changes in your productivity. Charlie at Productive Flourishing created a “productivity heatmap” that looks like a clock and makes it easy to record and visualize your best work times.
The hard way to do this — the way I did it, of course — is to procrastinate so horribly that you find yourself forced to work at odd hours of the day. I don’t recommend that approach.
What’s your most productive time of day, and how did you figure it out? Leave us a comment!
Jay is a freelance writer based in Seattle, WA. He writes about software for Download Squad and contributes interviews to Geek Monthly magazine, among others. You can also follow him on Twitter and at his blog.
Photo Credit — rob & jules
