A golden opportunity for radical reform, listening to our biology instead of our history
When the current global situation reached the shores of the UK, and it was obvious that I’d be working from home for the foreseeable future, I impulse bought a subscription to Masterclass. If you don’t know what Masterclass is, it’s a service which provides courses on various topics delivered by some very influential people. Having binged the entire course on how to do proper Texas BBQ by Aaron Franklin, and then immediately getting very sad because I didn’t have access to an offset smoker in order to put any of his lessons into practice, I decided to take one of their courses which I could actually do something with.
I started to watch the course on ‘The Science of Better Sleep’ as sleep has always been something I’ve had a bit of a love/hate relationship with. Never feeling like I was getting enough sleep while simultaneously never being able to easily fall asleep. Watching this course was truly fascinating, not only because of the sheer passion of Matthew Walker, PhD who delivers the course, but also the amount of revelations sprinkled throughout the course.
The spark for this article came to me in the first few lessons, but I wanted to wait until I’d finished the course before I started writing to make sure I had as much information as possible, and then it transpired that Matthew touched on the same kind of point right at the end of his course.
It’s a very simple thought, on the face of it a no-brainer to some people, but when you start to dive into the reality of it and what that would actually mean it becomes a very big challenge to implement.
It’s simply this: what if we didn’t work 9–5 Monday to Friday, but instead worked the hours that best align to our chronotype?
To bring all the readers up to the same baseline I’ll cover some basic points of sleep science but I highly recommend you go check out any of Matthew’s work. You can find some talks on Youtube from TED and other places, I also believe he has a book you can read.
There are a number of factors that influence our sleep, one being your circadian rhythm. This is the ebb and flow of alertness and tiredness. It’s a cycle which repeats over a 24 hour period. The circadian rhythm on the most basic level is influenced by light. As the light starts to come through (sunrise) it’ll push our circadian rhythm into alertness and as the light starts to dim (sunset) it’ll push our rhythm into tiredness. It’s a cycle which has been found to not be the same for everybody (as you no doubt have guessed), and when you think about our ancestors it makes total sense. We couldn’t have the entire tribe sleep for the same 8 hours or we’d be at risk of being attacked and/or eaten. So some people in the tribe would go to sleep earlier and wake up earlier, and others would go to sleep later and wake up later. This was to ensure that there was pretty much always someone standing guard. So you’ve heard about night-owls and early-birds, well that has been expanded in recent years into 4 categories. Lions, Bears, Dolphins and Wolves. Your Lions are your early risers, your Bears are your mid-risers and your Wolves are the late nighters. Dolphins are a different group of individuals who have erratic sleep schedules and so are a bit special but the advice is generally to follow the same pattern as the Wolves. On top of this difference in timing, each group has a different need for total amount of sleep, not by much (only 40–60 minutes or so), because of how many sleep cycles those chronotypes go through.
Why am I talking so much about sleep, you might be asking? Well, sleep and productivity are two sides of the same coin. If you can understand your circadian rhythm, (and your chronotype is genetic by the way so you have very little influence over it), then not only can you understand when you should be sleeping which will mean you wake feeling more refreshed, alert, and will ultimately perform better in whatever you set out to do. But if you understand the ebb and flow of your circadian rhythm then you can also fully utilise the period of time when you are genetically disposed to be most alert and productive, which differs for each chronotype. Take myself for example. I am a Wolf, always have been, I do my absolute best work late in the evening. The vast majority of my articles and side-projects are done at that time. If there is something around the house that needs to be done, it’ll most likely get done around that time because that’s when I’m able to tackle tasks in the most efficient manner. I’m generally far more productive in the late afternoon (as long as I haven’t crippled myself with an absolutely massive lunch) than I am in the morning. When it comes to sleeping, I’ve never ever been an early riser (to the point where it’s been a running joke amongst some of my friends) but if you need a designated driver for a midnight drive I’m generally the person to go to because I have no problem whatsoever staying awake at those times.
If I had a job where I didn’t have to talk to anyone else or work with anyone else and ultimately everything boiled down to my own output and relied on nothing other than me just being productive, then I would probably work from lunchtime until about 8 or so. At that point I know I’m being active at a time when I’m most productive. I would also probably find that I’m in the flow in the evening and just carry on until I find a natural stopping point. This would mean that I can satisfy my genetic need to go to bed late at night and wake up fairly late in the morning, and get the best possible quality of sleep thanks to my own natural circadian rhythm as well as do the best possible work I can do, instead of relying on a tea fuelled grind.
Which takes us back to the simple thought at the start of this. What if we worked according to what best suits us biologically, instead of the traditional Machiavellian 9–5. Could that even work in an environment that is so heavily built around collaboration and teamwork?
I say yes. What would that look like? Twelve to Three. It’s a radical reform, like I said in the title, but now we’re stuck working from home it’s an excellent opportunity to experiment with this kind of radical change and help people work around the challenges they’re facing in the current pandemic driven working environment.
So what do I mean by Twelve to Three? How I see it, in your typical working day you only really need a solid three hour window where the entire team is around in order to have any meetings/sessions which require everyone at once (if you do need more time than that, you’ve probably got some issues you should work through). Everybody would then work around those core hours according to when they are most productive. The early risers will be starting earlier and that three hour window will be the end of their day. The late risers will be just starting and the Bears who have a ‘normal’ day will be in the middle of their traditional day. This means that as a Wolf (late-nighter), if I need to have a call with a Lion (the early riser) I know that I need to do it at the start of my day to catch them before they log off. If there is anything I need from a Bear (middle) I know that I’ll have the majority of my day to get in touch with them before they switch off around 5ish and for any of my other Wolves I know they’re going to be around for the same time I am.
The world of remote working has pushed us into doing what I refer to as ‘Asynchronous Collaboration’. This is when you’re all working together towards the same goal but you’re not necessarily holding each other’s hands while you do it. You’ve divided up the work so you’re clear on who needs to accomplish what, and you’re off doing those tasks. And this kind of mature working based on trust would perfectly enable the flexibility to work around whatever time is best for yourself.
But, if you really need everyone in a team to be working the same hours then it’s as simple as building your teams around chronotypes and getting all your Lions together in one team, Bears another and Wolves another. Lions and Bears could probably work in the same team, same as Bears and Wolves. But having a team of Lions and Wolves will see too little overlap for what you’re trying to achieve.
Ultimately, there are a million books out there talking about flow and hyper-productive teams and how to do twice as much in half the time. And all these books focus on management structures of autonomy, shift left, bringing a decision down to its lowest logical level and all those great things. But they are all handcuffed from the start because we as a society are fundamentally not listening to our biology and working when we are genetically disposed to actually work. We’re forcing all of these squares (Wolves and Lions) to fit into the circle hole (Bears) on our shapes-toy and wondering why we aren’t getting the absolute most out of everyone. How much more effective do you think all of the principles I outlined in those books would be, if we had them operating on a foundation of well rested, highly productive people to start with?
I am available to give talks in England on how to build a culture and environment that breeds productivity and fulfilment through effective leadership. Connect with me on LinkedIn and let’s talk some more: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martyn-puddephatt-14b08757/.
Follow me on Twitter @mistermartynp
