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\n\t\tOpinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.\t<\/p>\n
Like much of the rest of the country, I just finished devouring HBO\u2019s gritty medical drama, The Pitt. As much as I love Dr. Robby and the rest of the show\u2019s 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u2019s attending, Dr. Abbot, tells his staff in a pre-shift pep talk, \u201cWe are the night crawlers. We deal with the weirdest and the wildest because \u2014 \u201d and here the group says in unison \u2014 \u201cwe are the weirdest and wildest of them all.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As a founder, I used to assume that productivity was mostly a matter of discipline \u2014 that if someone wasn\u2019t doing their highest level of thinking during core business hours, they simply needed better habits. I was wrong. What I\u2019ve 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.<\/p>\n
Contrary to the perception that people are either early birds or night owls, it turns out there\u2019s a whole range of hours when one may be predisposed to do their best thinking. For me, I\u2019m sharpest in the morning; by 3 p.m., I have to fight to stay focused. That\u2019s hardly the case for everyone \u2014 in fact, recent research<\/a> from the Journal of Sleep Research found four discrete circadian profiles, including but not limited to those who hit their stride in the afternoon.\u00a0<\/p>\n What determines which profile you fall into? Largely genetics<\/a>, though age plays a role too \u2014 teenagers and young adults tend to skew later, while older adults are often at their best earlier. Light exposure, exercise and even meal timing can nudge your rhythms, but nothing you do will fundamentally rewire them. You are, to a significant degree, born with your clock.<\/p>\n Why should leaders care? Because understanding how your employees operate best has a direct impact on their effectiveness. When we schedule our most demanding work without any regard for when our people are at their cognitive peak, their performance is going to suffer, and your bottom line is, too.<\/p>\n Presumably, you already know when you, personally, work best. If not, I suggest keeping an energy journal to note the times of day you feel alert and motivated, and when you start to flag.\u00a0<\/p>\n But leaders tend to have more flexibility than their teams \u2014 as a CEO, no one is raising any eyebrows about my comings and goings from the office. I can head out for a midday walk or have a long lunch with a colleague, and not worry about what my supervisor will think of my absence. It\u2019s one of the perks of being the boss.\u00a0<\/p>\nBuilding around your teams\u2019 best hours<\/h2>\n