Lark or Owl? Designing Your Schedule for Success and Well-Being

Have you heard the notion that people who wake up early are more productive? Society revolves around that notion.

We are used to waking up early for a workday starting at 9 a.m. and are expected to be productive from the get-go. However, the reality is that each person has a biological predisposition that influences their most and least energetic times of the day.¹ This is called a chronotype, which is the genetic preference of people to specific hours of activity.²

A growing number of companies are scheduling their employees’ work times to match their chronotypes. As a result, employees are getting more sleep, are more honest, and feel happier.³ Given the impact of the COVID-19, knowing how to personalize your schedule for remote work is becoming even more important.

How do I determine my chronotype?

There are two main chronotypes: larks and owls.

Larks prefer getting up earlier and going to sleep earlier, and hit their peak performance level earlier in the day.⁴

Owls prefer sleeping in and staying up later, and hit their peak performance level later in the day.⁵ Most individuals — around 70% — lie somewhere in between.⁶

You can estimate your chronotype by noticing patterns of peaks and valleys throughout the course of a day. During peaks, you will feel the following way:⁷

• Physically fit to perform tasks requiring physical strength and endurance
• Most creative, loving, and warm
• More open in your relationships
• Most intellectually responsive
• Open to accepting and understanding new ideas

During valleys, you will experience less energy. You will feel the following way:⁸

• Very irritated and negative about everyday occurrences
• More inclined to withdraw
• Less cooperative
• Difficulty grasping new ideas

What are the benefits of aligning my schedule with my chronotype?

1. Improved Work Performance. Studies have shown that working according to your chronotype improves performance, efficiency, and productivity.⁹ In manufacturing, working according to your chronotype helps reduce the rate of accidents.¹⁰
2. Improved Academic Performance. A study found that the difference in test grades between lark and owl students disappeared when they were tested in the early afternoon, as opposed to in the early and late morning.¹¹ Schools should more carefully choose what time they administer tests and possibly delay their start times. Similar reasoning can be applied to jobs.
3. Improved Sleep Quality. Your chronotype naturally tells you when to sleep. According to Dr. Michael Breus, if you sleep when your chronotype dictates it, then you will have higher quality sleep. You will fall asleep faster, wake up fewer times throughout the night, and have a deeper sleep.¹²
4. Better Physical Health. Circadian rhythms are fluctuations in various biological processes over the course of a day and are directly tied to chronotypes.¹³ Disrupting circadian rhythms is linked to the abnormal cell division of cancerous cells.¹⁴ Circadian rhythms are also associated with cardiovascular diseases and its risk factors, including diabetes and obesity.¹⁵
5. Better Mental Health. The disruption of circadian rhythms has been shown to contribute to the onset of depression. A study found that employees with insufficient coping behaviors were more vulnerable to psychological problems when scheduled to work at times that did not fit their chronotypes.¹⁶

How should my schedule be changed?

Companies can revise their practices in the following ways:

• Challenge the traditional 9–5 workday hours. Companies could simply delay the start of their workday to an hour later. Companies could then schedule meetings in the early and mid-afternoon, which are hours that benefit both larks and owls. Another solution would be that employees are required to work from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., for instance.¹⁷ During the last part of the day, employees would be at work whenever they choose.
• Allow your employees to independently work towards deadlines. Bosses can set task deadlines, in which their employees can allocate their own time to meet them.

You can revise your own schedule in a few different ways:

• Look for a job that best matches your chronotype. Larks would enjoy a job with a traditional schedule, with an early start to work and early arrival home.¹⁸ Owls would instead prefer a job where they can choose their own schedule or work in the afternoon.¹⁹
• Be intentional with the time you wake up and do work. Larks should wake up early and complete their hardest tasks during their peak, which is in the morning and early afternoon. Conversely, owls should sleep in and complete their hardest tasks during their peak, which is in the late afternoon and at night.

Endnotes

1. How Identifying Your Sleep Chronotype Can Improve Your Productivity. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://nollapelli.com/blogs/news/how-identifying-your-sleep-chronotype-can-improve-your-productivity
2. Reinke, L., Ozbay, Y., Dieperink, W., & Tulleken, J. E. (2015). The effect of chronotype on sleepiness, fatigue, and psychomotor vigilance of ICU nurses during the night shift. Intensive Care Medicine , 41, 657–666. Retrieved from https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00134-015-3667-7#citeas
3. Laber-Warren, E. (2018, December 24). New Office Hours Aim for Well Rested, More Productive Workers. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/24/well/mind/work-schedule-hours-sleep-productivity-chronotype-night-owls.html
4. Are You a Morning Lark or a Night Owl? (2018, May 28). Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/talking-apes/201805/are-you-morning-lark-or-night-owl
5. Ibid.
6. Preckel, F., Lipnevich, A. A., Schneider, S., & Roberts, R. D. (2011). Chronotype, cognitive abilities, and academic achievement: A meta-analytic investigation. Learning and Individual Differences, 21(5), 483–492. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S104160801100080X?casa_token=Cb-f1Z3wxfIAAAAA:DNP9yW1Qf7tgn-4kGa1Qet_YLp-6yqY0Ynv6skSOFJN84SGmfLQohmSZjTYilTyTScazJiuq
7. Novikova, A., & Bilyk, O. (2015). The peculiarity of thin border between people’s chronotypes and the level of labour productivity. Lviv Polytechnic Publishing House, 274–275. Retrieved from http://ena.lp.edu.ua/bitstream/ntb/39820/1/100-274-275.pdf
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.
11. van der Vinne, V., Zerbini, G., Siersema, A., Pieper, A., Merrow, M., Hut, R. A., … Kantermann, T. (2015). Timing of Examinations Affects School Performance Differently in Early and Late Chronotypes. Journal of Biological Rhythms, 30(1), 53–60. Retrieved from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0748730414564786
12. Breus, M. (2020, May 19). How Your Chronotype Can Help in the Coronavirus Outbreak. Retrieved from https://thesleepdoctor.com/2020/05/19/how-your-chronotype-can-help-in-the-coronavirus-outbreak/
13. Circadian Rhythm. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/circadian-rhythm
14. Farhud, D., & Aryan, Z. (n.d.). Circadian Rhythm, Lifestyle and Health: A Narrative Review. Iranian Journal of Public Health, 47(8), 1068–1076. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6123576/
15. Ibid.
16. Reinke, L., Ozbay, Y., Dieperink, W., & Tulleken, J. E. (2015). The effect of chronotype on sleepiness, fatigue, and psychomotor vigilance of ICU nurses during the night shift. Intensive Care Medicine , 41, 657–666. Retrieved from https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00134-015-3667-7#citeas
17. Novikova, A., & Bilyk, O. (2015). The peculiarity of thin border between people’s chronotypes and the level of labour productivity. Lviv Polytechnic Publishing House, 274–275. Retrieved from http://ena.lp.edu.ua/bitstream/ntb/39820/1/100-274-275.pdf
18. Ibid.
19. Ibid.