There are times when you are operating at your best without breaking a sweat. You are fully immersed in your task or work, with laser focused attention, top-notch efficiency and sky-high effectiveness. You are soaring at your ‘peak performance’. It feels good and gratifying. Your heart swells with pride. You might even give yourself a pat on the back. These golden moments can be short lived though. They are certainly not sustainable all day long, at least not for most of us.
Then, there are times when you are struggling to formulate a single cohesive thought in your brain. You are squirming to form a clear sentence, as words appear jumbled and chaotic. You are frustrated, exhausted, confused and outright disgusted. It is time to hit ‘pause’. You have just reached a new low and you are at a loss as to what to do next. You might persist, pushing through the dense brain fog and sheer mental fatigue. You might end up with errors, making poor decisions, and using your time unwisely. The output is shoddy at best. You are disheartened.
To work at your optimal best, without feeling like you are swimming upstream, it is astute to look at the concept of chronotypes. A chronotype is a person’s natural preference for sleep and wake cycles. Our body’s circadian rhythm is our internal 24-hour clock influenced by light and darkness, that affect both our behavioral and psychological processes. Nature dictates each person’s chronotype. It is up to us to figure out our own and make it work for us.
For ease of understanding, Daniel Pink offers a formula, in his book “When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing”. The day can be divided into three periods:
- Peak: When we work at our optimal best, with high energy, at a sturdy pace
- Trough: When we dip into low performance, with sluggish energy, at a shaky pace
- Recovery: When we resurface with improved effort, fresh energy, at a picked-up pace
Each period is conducive to certain kinds of tasks:
- Peak: Analytical activities, requiring deep focus, critical decisions
- Trough: Administrative tasks, requiring routine behaviors, quick decisions
- Recovery: Creative work, requiring fresh perspectives, inspired decisions
To figure out what time of day is your peak, trough, or recovery, you may want to identify what chronotype you are.
LARKS: Morning Types. Those who wake up early in the morning, are most alert and full of pep mid-morning, reach their trough mid-afternoon, and recover with renewed energy and focus early evening.
OWLS: Night Types. Those who wake up late, are slow starters as they are in slump mode, pick up their pace and energy mid-afternoon and reach their peak in the evenings.
THIRD BIRDS: Intermediate Types. Those who fall in between these two categories and generally have a more moderate daily rhythm.
This could give you some insight into why you perform so effortlessly at certain times and struggle so futilely at other times. Once you tag your chronotype, you can plan accordingly and see how invigorating it is to realize you are making ideal use of your day. Then sit back and feel the smile spread on your face as you claim your satisfaction!