> Yet the research continues to mount, arguing that evening people have qualities which should be nurtured. They tend to be more creative, intelligent, humorous and extroverted. They are the balance to morning people, who are said to be more optimistic, proactive and conscientious.
You're sounding dangerously close to a horoscope, there.
To get less horoscopey: Kanazawa and Perina found a correlation between "eveningness" or being a "night owl" with higher childhood IQs, in a study of about 15,000 adults. They conclude that the correlation is due to more intelligent people being more likely to espouse "evolutionarily novel values." The paper is here at LSE: http://personal.lse.ac.uk/Kanazawa/pdfs/PAID2009.pdf
A simpler explanation seems to be that morning people are more in line with the regular 9-5 schedule of businesses and schools, and that 9-5 schedule was set from the days when natural light was an important factor in when work could be conducted. Thus, biology may be less of a factor than social structures.
These days, I'm noticing a shift toward later schedules--college professors are realizing they get better attendance if they hold classes in the afternoons, for example. So perhaps a gradual cultural shift will come to better accommodate evening people.
It's the flight of the evening people... away from the morning people. Now they have a choice, so they choose to come in later and work as late as possible thus minimizing the time they have to share with the energetic, cheerful, hyper, morning folks.
When I was doing remote software consulting I would literally get up at 7pm, go out clubbing. Not drink, come home at 1 or 2 am and code till about 9am and then talk to clients for a few hours and then go to sleep. It was totally k-rad awesome. I find that if I work regular hours after work I can't enjoy myself because I am totally burnt out from the work day and just want to go sleep. Doing the most stressful act of the day, talking with clients, right before I went to sleep was perfect.
I alternate between the two, and while I have to admit I get more actual measurable work done during the day my best work was invariably produced during long and undisturbed nights.
It's mostly an attempt at normalizing my interaction with society that forces me in to a 'day' pattern, if not for that I'd be perfectly content sleeping days and working nights.
I also work both. I rotate or "flip" my schedule about every week and a half. I find working in the evening to be my most productive time, but coming in early is wonderful for collaboration and coordination. By splitting my schedule I'm able to binge on both, keeping me overall productive. It's also convenient for me because as a night owl, I can't maintain a morning schedule.
In an ideal world, I'd be both a morning and an evening person. I've found this works best for me. Unfortunately, this can be challenging to pull off, because it requires taking a long nap in the middle of the day, and this practice is held in even lower esteem and even more discouraged by employers than evening people.
I'm in the habit of taking a lunch time siesta myself. I've found it best to get in the car and drive to a nice shady spot so my clients aren't wondering what the heck I'm doing.
A 20 - 40 minute nap in the middle of the day works wonders.
Amen to that. I feel that my productive part of the day consists of two halves - one in the morning, another a couple of hours after lunch. A siesta in between makes it just perfect for the ultimate "work throughput".
Funny, I recall from reading "How To Sleep Less And Have More Energy" that humans are designed to take a nap in the middle of the day.
My parents from India say the same thing, they will typically nap in the middle of the afternoon for a couple hours (it's too hot to do work outside anyways), then wakeup again in the late afternoon to do things.
Whenever I do that, I wake up feeling AWFUL and go through the rest of the day in a daze. I can feel the positive effects too, but it's never worth it.
I heartily agree, I usually separate my day into 2 cycles. I was raised like this... I remember the entire family taking a mid-day or afternoon nap as far back as my memory goes. When I don't have other day-time commitments, I typically wake up around 5-6am, but then will take get the other 1/2 of my daily sleep around noon.
Seems to me 'morning' people tend to get less sleep in general.
I've read that early morning or sleep deprived minds are in a sort of pseudo-hypnotic state, more susceptible to suggestion, able to absorb information easily and less likely to become distracted. Obedience and banality are traditional paths to success in the workplace.
"They are the balance to morning people, who are said to be more optimistic, proactive and conscientious."
...
"It was the morning people who were more likely to agree with statements such as “I feel in charge of making things happen” and “I spend time identifying long-range goals for myself.”"
But I am pretty sure the "who" refers to the morning people. So morning people are said to be more optimistic, and they give themselves higher ratings in a questionnaire. It is therefore not clear if they give themselves higher ratings because they are really better, or because they are just more optimistic about their performance.
If you stay up late enough you can get the best of both worlds. My ideal schedule would be something like this:
5PM to 1AM: Personal time (pretty choice hours, lines up with other people's personal time)
1AM to 9AM: Distraction free work time overnight and enough time in the morning to send out some e-mails at the start of the business day. (you can cheat and que the messages up and send them all at 9am)
10AM to 4PM: Sleep (7 hours, not bad)
4PM to 5PM: Answer your e-mail that has accumulated through the day before the 9-5-ers pack it up. People won't be expecting instant responses so you can avoid a lot of the back & forth of inefficient e-mail communication.
Not a fan of sunlight, I take it? I don't think I could deal with only seeing a couple of hours of sunlight per day, and besides, my body clock _wants_ to synchronise itself with the sun.
Ideally I like to get up at 6am and work from 7 'til 3. The only trouble is that it's socially difficult to leave work at 3pm since everybody thinks you're slacking (they didn't see your two hours of work before they came in).
The only problem is that this doesn't work if you have a job, or go to school. So that rules out just about everybody. (Well, unless you are working on a startup...)
Well it's sure that a good school -> good university -> good job. It might not always be the case, but usually it goes like that. And school is really morning based until you get to college and university where you can choose your schedule. So, in this way of thinking, morning people are kind of advantaged because they "fit" better in the educational system.
pre-school that starts at 1pm to 10 pm someone? I'm pretty sure those kid's parents will be pretty upset!
"[C]an one change one's chronotype from evening to morning?"
I used to be a night owl, but I eventually synced to my wife's morning schedule. When I had no other structure (school, work) I found that I had a 26 hour day, which would precess through a normal day over time.
Mine was about 28 hours. It was great fun, I made lots of progress with lucid dreaming when I was giving my body whatever sleep schedule it dictated, and I got to know all the great all night diners. But setting appointments was troublesome; involving projections of when the precession would next overlapping a waking period with normal business hours.
I've also found scheduling to be the biggest issue with a daily rhythm != 24hr. Mine's about 28hr as well.
Fortunately I work for a small bayesian-oriented marketing research co (15 employees, I am #6) with some very accommodating founders.
The biggest hurdle is making sure I keep the team up to date on when I plan to be at work/working from home. It's not always easy to forecast my sleep schedule.
Am I the only one who is questioning the quality of the conclusions in an article whose sole factual basis is a survey of college students from a single university and a couple of anecdotes from the CEO of a vitamin water business?
> Morning people also anticipate problems and try to minimize them. They're proactive.
Looks like the author never had to plan the next day, knowing he'll be "low-brained" during morning hours.
This requires forward planning.
Try to wake up in the middle of the night and resume work without context, we'll see how it goes!
I personally maintain a detailed TODO list, as well as a log book. So I know were to start from, what's pending, and what I did.
Bonus is that it also help you answer "What the hell did you do last month?" questions from clueless managers.
+1 for the mid-day nap. I find it to be a great refresher, when not too much in sleep debt, of course.
Many times, I have been stuck on a programming problem at the end of the day. Many times, I come in and solve it immediately first thing in the morning. This leads me to believe I think more clearly in the mornings. Anyone else have this happen?
Or, perhaps your brain is unconsciously working on the problem overnight and the solution is presented to your conscious self the next morning.
I used to try to reach a "clean" stopping point before quitting work for the day, until I was advised that going home with problems outstanding can have benefits. It does seem that even if I'm not actively thinking about such a problem, I will have fresh perspectives the next morning.
I find that getting up in the morning is useful for several reasons.
I get up with an alarm clock; therefore, my day begins with a sense of purpose. As a result of waking up so early, my first action is often to go exercise or drill basketball dribbling or whatever. Or it may be to read a book. Also, by getting up early, at the end of the day, I am exhausted, and fall asleep immediately. Unfortunately, I miss out on the social benefits of waking up late. I have yet to formulate an excellent resolution.
You're sounding dangerously close to a horoscope, there.