The ambivert’s schedule

I have been thinking more about how to match how I spend my time with my personality. I am an ambivert — somewhere in the middle between extraversion and introversion. Moreover, I have found that my extroversion vs introversion varies throughout the day.

In the morning, I am an introvert — sometimes a pretty extreme one. When I was a kid, I would literally put a cereal box in front of my face so I could avoid interacting with my siblings at the breakfast table. Understandably, they took it personally (I continue to hear about it to this day). Only recently have I realized this was not about them. The earlier in the day, the stronger my preference to be alone with my thoughts. My co-workers will attest to this when they pass by my office first thing in the morning and see me with my earbuds in, looking serious, Pomodoro timer ticking.

Hopefully I more accessible in the mornings than I was as a kid, but I now have a better awareness of my instinctual morning disposition.

In the afternoon, I become more extroverted. I seek the company of others. I look forward to meetings. I want to engage in conversation and feel energized by interacting with groups of people, large or small. After lunchtime, I find it hard to sit at my desk for long periods of time, deep in concentration.

We often talk about being “night people” or “morning people,” suggesting that we are more productive, and have more energy at certain parts of the day. Even if that is true, the problem is that most of us have to work for more than a morning or a night. If someone is a “morning person,” what do they do in the afternoon? What does this tell you about what they should do in the morning, for that matter?

I wonder if we need a more nuanced interpretation about how to deal with the variances in a person’s energy throughout a workday (or night). Maybe we need to go beyond forming a view of when people do their best work, or have the best energy — the morning person vs night person distinction — and think about how a person’s energy, and even personality, varies throughout the day, and how to optimize their calendars and workflows around this.

Paul Graham’s blog post about maker’s and managers schedules helped clarify for me that there is no ideal schedule. It depends, of course, on the person’s role. It may also depend on their personality. Graham’s blog got me thinking about what an ambivert’s schedule would look like.

Here is my version:

• Have an hour of solo time before everyone else in the family wakes up
• Avoid meetings before noon, if possible (I fail at this about two out of five days, but it is a useful default starting position)
• If I have to work on a hard problem or produce a document that requires an hour or two of concentrated work, do that first
• Mornings are also a good time for any proactive (as opposed to responsive) communication with others (if emails or short phone calls, ideally these are batched)
• Eat lunch with others (team lunch, business lunch)
• Pack the afternoon with productive interactions (client meetings, recruiting, team problem solving sessions or functional meetings, networking or business development)
• Family time in the evening
• If I work late at night (usually I do), focus on (1) responsive emails (2) administrative tasks (3) relaxed, generative conversations with a colleague

Obviously this is a somewhat Platonic ideal. No one has complete control over their schedule. As a co-owner of a business, I am fortunate about the degree of control I have over mine. But, due to factors outside my control, my day rarely looks exactly like the one laid out above.

If most of us are ambiverts, which the research suggests, then maybe we need to start thinking more seriously about how our energy varies throughout the day, and build our schedules around this. Even if we can’t control our schedules, there are opportunities to better communicate with colleagues about the ebbs and flows of our sociability and solitude-seeking, so we can work better together.