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Key Takeaways Everyone has their own circadian rhythm, the internal clock that governs when they feel their sharpest. Peak performance times are something you discover over time and build around.
Obviously, it’s not possible to completely redesign the standard workday, but it is possible to be more conscious about what tasks are completed and when. For example, if you know your lead engineer is most focused in the late morning, that may not be the best time to schedule your weekly check-in call.
Like much of the rest of the country, I just finished devouring HBO’s gritty medical drama, The Pitt. As much as I love Dr. Robby and the rest of the show’s day crew, around whom the series revolves, it always thrills me when their grueling, 15-hour shifts start to wind down and the night shift shows up.
It takes a specific kind of person to become an emergency room doctor, and an even more specific kind to become one who particularly loves working overnights. As the night shift’s attending, Dr. Abbot, tells his staff in a pre-shift pep talk, “We are the night crawlers. We deal with the weirdest and the wildest because — ” and here the group says in unison — “we are the weirdest and wildest of them all.”
This delightful scene got me thinking, and not just about how grateful I am that there are men and women out there who are staffing our hospitals in the wee hours of the night. It also reminded me that everyone has their own circadian rhythm, the internal clock that governs when they feel their sharpest.
As a founder, I used to assume that productivity was mostly a matter of discipline — that if someone wasn’t doing their highest level of thinking during core business hours, they simply needed better habits. I was wrong. What I’ve learned, both from building Jotform and from watching how our team actually operates, is that peak performance times are something you have to discover and build around.
The science behind circadian rhythms
Contrary to the perception that people are either early birds or night owls, it turns out there’s a whole range of hours when one may be predisposed to do their best thinking. For me, I’m sharpest in the morning; by 3 p.m., I have to fight to stay focused. That’s hardly the case for everyone — in fact, recent research from the Journal of Sleep Research found four discrete circadian profiles, including but not limited to those who hit their stride in the afternoon.
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