Do Yourself a Favor and Step Away from Productivity Hacks
Whenever I read an article about productivity hacks of successful people, I always end up feeling inadequate. I am a hard worker and have been repeatedly told that I have boundless energy, but when I see examples of schedules of successful people that begin at 4:00 a.m. and end at 8:00 p.m. with not even five minutes of free time, I wonder what’s wrong with me.
Perhaps I would be more productive if I woke up at 4 a.m. every day, squeezing in a quick workout and doing deep thought work long before the sun or anyone in my household even thinks about waking up. But I would be absolutely miserable. I am a night owl and have been my whole life. Even as a baby, I did not get up before 8 a.m., much to my mom’s delight. And while it certainly would be possible for me to get up earlier in the morning, the question I have is why do I feel bad that I don’t? Why is there so much pressure to conform to a one-size-fits-all approach to a productive schedule?
Dolly Parton is a saint who walks on earth, but when I read about her schedule, I wanted to cry. She wakes up every day by 3 a.m. and spends the next four hours writing and relies on power naps to get through the day. That makes a 9-5 schedule look like a cake walk! As much as I love Dolly and love the idea of getting in nearly a full day’s work before my colleagues on the West coast power up their Macbooks, I can confidently say that it won’t work for me–and that's okay.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m a sucker for productivity hacks. But sometimes, all those hacks make us feel like we should become something that we are not. In the reckless pursuit of productivity we often lose sight of the value of our own idiosyncrasies and habits which make us unique–and uniquely productive. After all, the goal shouldn’t be to turn yourself into something you aren’t, but to learn how to be the best version of yourself. If all of us followed the same formula for being productive, then it would no longer work because we would all be emailing one another at 4:00 in the morning.
At this stage in my career, I’ve accepted my strengths and limitations. I am not a morning person, nor do I want to be. But what I’ve realized is that I have a limited amount of time each day of intense focus, time when I can channel my energy without getting distracted (sadly, the duration is dwindling the older I get). While I might be able to schedule a few of those hours when I am less likely to be distracted by family members or co-workers, they are finite. Whether I get up at 4 a.m. or 7 a.m. (which I have to confess, still feels pretty early to me), I will still have the same number of hours of intense focus time.
The same goes for exercise. I know that exercising at 5 a.m. is a surefire way for me to squeeze it in every day. Exercise is important to me, and I get frustrated when I miss an evening workout because I have a work or social activity. But I also know that exercise is the way that I manage the stress from the day. I don’t get a vigorous workout at 5 a.m. because I am not awake enough to be stressed. But by 5:00 p.m. on most days, I am a bundle of nerves and can’t wait to get on the treadmill or to my dance class to let it all out. For me, one of the primary benefits of exercise would be lost if I tried to adhere to the early morning ideal.
As humans, we are remarkably adaptable, no matter how much we tell ourselves we don’t like change. If we need to change, we can. But it is important to preserve a sense of yourself and your own needs and rhythms when you look for ways to improve. Engineering every second to conform to an illusory ideal of the productive worker or leader can actually undermine your productivity, not to mention your happiness.
I recommend a different approach that starts with knowing your limits. Instead of looking to others to tell you how to be productive, examine your own patterns. When do you naturally wake up? What are your most productive periods of the day? Are there ways to adjust your schedule so that you can take advantage of those times? Instead of obsessing over whether you are getting up early enough, focus on how you can work smarter with the productive hours you do have. In my current job, since many of my colleagues are on the West coast, I can work uninterrupted from 8-10 a.m. every day. In the afternoons, not so much. As a result, I’ve learned to frontload my days, tackling the most challenging tasks in the morning and leaving more mechanical tasks, such as scheduling meetings, for the afternoon when I have fewer chunks of time and less mental energy. Recognizing where to focus your energy to maximize your impact is more important than squeezing productivity out of every waking moment. If you are anything like me, a schedule that has been engineered down the second sounds miserable. Likewise, going to bed at 9:00 every night would make me feel like I’m missing out of my favorite part of the day. If I really want to find some quiet, uninterrupted time, I’d be better off working from 9-10 every night than from 5:00-6:00 a.m., and the grand scheme of things, what’s the difference?
The bottom line is that you should not feel the need to change your basic habits. If you like to stay up late and sleep late, as long as it works for your job, go with it. Don’t sacrifice your happiness for a one-size-fits-all approach to productivity. Find the habits and systems that work for you and run with them.
