{"id":9774,"date":"2018-05-16T07:13:59","date_gmt":"2018-05-16T11:13:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/business.financialpost.com\/?p=1591535"},"modified":"2018-05-16T07:13:59","modified_gmt":"2018-05-16T11:13:59","slug":"synchrony-and-the-art-of-a-good-days-productivity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/2018\/05\/16\/synchrony-and-the-art-of-a-good-days-productivity\/","title":{"rendered":"Synchrony and the art of a good day\u2019s productivity"},"content":{"rendered":"

When you ask people how they are, the most common response is \u201cbusy.\u201d People routinely report being overwhelmed with the level of their personal and professional responsibilities. Not surprisingly, one of our major challenges is how to effectively manage our time. This conundrum prompted Daniel Pink<\/a>, top-rated TED speaker and best-selling author of Drive<\/em> and To Sell Is Human<\/em>, to write his latest book, When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re in a constant battle for every minute of our attention. I found there was an enormous amount of research in many fields, from social psychology to economics to endocrinology to chronobiology, where we have scholars asking very similar questions: \u201cWhat are the effects of the time of day on our productivity? And, how do we then best maximize and manage our time?\u201d<\/p>\n

While seeking out these answers, Pink made an important discovery: \u201cIn the course of an entire day, we all experience a peak, a trough and then a recovery in our energy, which ends up reflecting our pattern in performance as well.\u201d To be at your best, look for what scholars call the \u201csynchrony effect,\u201d to match up your type, your task and your time available.<\/p>\n

To take advantage of this effect, the most important step is to first determine our type: larks, night owls or in between. Extreme larks tend to wake up when extreme night owls fall asleep. According to Pink, approximately 14 per cent of us are larks, who go to bed and get up early. Night owls, on the other hand, represent 20 per cent of the population; they fall asleep later and wake up later. The majority of us, including Pink himself, fit in the middle.<\/p>\n

There are several instruments we can use to figure out our chronotype, such as the Munich Chronotype questionnaire, which helps us understand how our biological clocks might impact our social lives.<\/p>\n

However, you need not be limited by these formal assessments. \u201cYou can also measure it using the \u2018back of the envelope\u2019 way,\u201d Pink says, \u201cby recording your midpoint of sleep on what we call \u2018free\u2019 days \u2014 days when you don\u2019t have to be awake at a certain time, for example on a Saturday. If your midpoint of sleep between when you go to bed and when you rise is 3:30 a.m. or earlier, you are a lark. If your midpoint is after 5:30 a.m., you’re more of an owl.\u201d<\/p>\n

Armed with this self-knowledge, we can organize our days much more productively by figuring what tasks we are doing and when should we be doing them. Here\u2019s an example:<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring our peak, which for most of us is the morning but for some of us is the late afternoon or early evening, we\u2019re better at doing what social psychologists call analytic problems,\u201d says Pink. \u201cBy analytical, I mean work that requires head-down focus and attention, like writing a report or analyzing complex data. That\u2019s the time of day when we are most vigilant, where we\u2019re able to bat away distractions more easily.\u201d<\/p>\n