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I’m a late riser. It’s in my DNA. Instead of springing out of bed before the sun pokes above the horizon, I much prefer to keep my eye mask on and sleep through the sunrise. Most days, I roll out of bed around 8.
Does this make me less productive?
If you’re anything like me and don’t love to rise at the crack of dawn, you’re in luck. The idea of waking up early—kind of like inbox zero—is a sexy one. But the research does not support its effectiveness.
I find one study on this particularly illuminating. Research highlighted by circadian neuroscientist Russell Foster (including in his great TED Talk) has found that the time we wake up has no bearing on our socioeconomic status. In other words, those of us who wake up at 5 a.m. are just as successful in life as those of us who wake up at noon. (There’s no need to feel guilty if you wake up a bit later.)
This makes sense when you think about it. Imagine two identical days, one of which begins at 7 am and the other that begins at 10 am. What matters far more than when we wake up is what we do with our time after we get up. How deliberately we act matters far more than what time we happen to get up at.
You can rest easy if you like to rise late, early, or somewhere in between. When it comes to your productivity level and how well you do, how deliberate your days are matters far more than what time you get up at.
Know when your energy peaks throughout the day—and work around those hours instead.
