Why Starting School Later Than Most Every Day Is One of the Biggest Reasons I Have Been Successful
I’ve been listening to an audiobook recently called “When. The Scientific Art of Perfect Timing” and I’ve been absolutely loving the book so far. One key concept that is brought up early on in the book is the idea of a Chronotype.
Chronotype refers to the behavioral manifestation of underlying circadian rhythms of myriad physical processes. — Wikipedia
In the book, the author describes three different chronotypes. The three types he mentions are larks, owls, and third birds. Larks are early morning risers who are up before the sun rises. Owls are night owls who stay up really late into the night. Then finally, third birds are your more average people who wake up and go to sleep at normals hours of the day.
According to the book’s research, most people are third birds. Then when you compare owls and larks, there are slightly more larks than there are owls. That is, most people wake up at early or normal morning hours and function at peak performance by doing this. It makes sense to me that this is the case because as the saying goes, “the early bird gets the worm.” Although this is the case for most, it is not at all the case for me. I am a prime example of an owl.
If I Could Choose When to Wake Up, When Would I Wake Up?
I was speaking with a friend about this topic the other day, and a coworker about it this morning, and I realized that my perfect schedule would be the following. Wake up at 10:00 am, start working at 11:00 am, work until about dinner time, take a break during dinner and a couple hours after (which is when social activities would happen), then finally work from 10:00 pm until 2:00 am. For most, this sounds absolutely horrible, but for me, this would be a dream.
I’ve learned over the years, especially in college, that I am most awake and do my best work from 10:00 or 11:00 pm until 2:00 am. No matter how exhausted I am throughout the day, as soon as ten o’clock rolls around, I start to wake up, gain focus, and instantly want to work on everything I need to accomplish. There have been countless nights of late night work on personal projects or midnight cleaning sessions where I would clean and reorganize my entire room. It’s both a blessing and a curse.
Making it as a Night Owl in a World of Larks
Up until now, being a night owl hasn’t been a big problem. In high school, I helped start a computer help desk at my school and I set it up so I could work the help desk for an hour after school each day. Working the help desk counted as a class credit, which meant I was able to start high school at 9:00 am every day instead of the normal 7:00 am or 8:00 am.
In college, I had the freedom to do a similar thing. Instead of having to wake up early, I was able to select a class schedule that best worked for me. There were only ever a handful of classes that I took before 11:00 am. I actually quite a few semesters where I only had class 3 or 4 days a week, which allowed me to wake up late and work all day on school work or HackCU. Knowing how my body worked, and how I could accomplish my best work, was invaluable to doing well in school and in life.
Now that I’m working a normal job, with normal hours, this trait has become an extreme inconvenience. Or I suppose I should say, the social norm of having to wake up early has become an extreme inconvenience. There have been so many times that I’ve started to gain my focus and excitement for a project at 11:00 pm, but I instantly have to stop my progress because I need to go to sleep so I can wake up for work the next morning.
What Can I Do Moving Forward
The idea of working “non-traditional” hours is one of the many things I’m consciously on the lookout for opportunities to improve my life. I know that I’m not normal in that I love to stay up late, but being different, and utilizing my differences to my advantage, is what will ultimately lead me to the success I want to have in life. I don’t know if the opportunity will be requesting to start later my current job, working a job that is remote or starting my own company, but I’m on the lookout for these opportunities and excited for what the future might look like.
