“The early bird catches the worm.”
This popular idiom was drilled into our consciousness since most of us were youth, and scientifically speaking, there does seem to be certain advantages of waking early. With plenty of CEOs touting the benefits of rising before 6:00AM to accomplish their most important tasks of the day, many “night owls” scratch their heads, sigh in resignation, and proceed to unenthusiastically force themselves to go to bed early and wake up to try to do the same. But is this actually helpful advice for those who are more inclined to stay up late? Maybe not.
There is a growing movement within productivity circles that focuses on working in sync with your personal biorhythms and/or doing your most difficult or creative work at the time of day when you’re naturally at your best. Jodi Wehling of People Matters even coined the term, “golden hours” to indicate that these hours should be identified and viewed as your precious, most productive time to be safeguarded and strategically used. For me, I’m the early bird trying to catch the worm, and you’ll find me up at the crack of dawn each day, looking forward to tackling my to-dos all nicely listed in time blocks on my schedule. Others will have just gone to bed by 2:00AM (or later) and will need the morning hours to complete their rest. Still others have found that their “golden hours” are midday, somewhere between the hours of 10:00AM and 2:00PM, so they’ll semi “sleep-in” and go to bed later than early birds, but earlier than night owls.
If you’re not an early bird, you may be sighing a great sigh of relief. Of course you should work based on when you’re at your best! It doesn’t make sense to force yourself into a mold of what other “successful” people have done. Flexibility is one of the reasons why you became a solopreneur in the first place.
So how do you determine which hours are your “golden hours?” Jodi Wehling suggests that you schedule a full day without meetings or distractions to note how you’re feeling during each hour. You may find that you have “spurts” of productive/creative hours, say first thing in the morning from 9:00AM to 10:00AM, then in the afternoon from 1:00PM to 2:00PM, and again at night from 7:00PM to 8:00PM. Or you might find that your most productive hours comes in a continuous block of time at some point in the day.
Whatever you find, it’s important to reflect on your current work schedule and make any necessary changes for optimal productivity. From your to-do list, schedule your less productive hours with tasks that require minimal effort such as answering emails, planning meeting agendas, or filing paperwork, and make sure you utilize your identified productive hours for the major tasks that will make the most difference in your business.
Still not finding your “golden hours?” Let’s have a chat and see if we can generate some solutions for a more productive work schedule together.
