Speaker 1: Welcome to How I Work, a show about the tactics
Speaker 1: used by the world's most successful people to get so
Speaker 1: much out of their day. I'm your host, doctor Amantha Invera.
Speaker 1: I'm an organizational psychologist, the founder of behavioral science consultancy Inventium,
Speaker 1: and I'm obsessed with finding ways to optimize my work day.
Speaker 1: If you're a regular listener of How I Work, you
Speaker 1: will know that I've been doing a bit of a
Speaker 1: call out for listener questions. I'm really keen to know
Speaker 1: what is on your mind. What are the questions that
Speaker 1: you have around the world of work, working from home, productivity,
Speaker 1: being happier at work, anything you like. So if you've
Speaker 1: got questions on your mind, please email them through to
Speaker 1: me at Amantha at inventium dot com dot au, and
Speaker 1: I will be picking out ones that I think lots
Speaker 1: of other listeners can benefit from having answers. So that
Speaker 1: is what today's episode is about. So today's listener question
Speaker 1: is all about chronotypes, which is if you haven't heard
Speaker 1: of the term chronotype before, it's basically refers to our
Speaker 1: twenty four hour cycle of when our energy is at
Speaker 1: its peak and when it's at its trough. When you're asleep,
Speaker 1: but also sometimes during certain times of the day. So
Speaker 1: the question is what's a good way to test and
Speaker 1: understand where you fit on the chronotype spectrum, and when understood,
Speaker 1: how do you best balance your natural rhythms against the
Speaker 1: demands of customers, colleagues, and family. So to give everyone
Speaker 1: that's not familiar with the idea of chronotypes just a
Speaker 1: sense of a bit more of a sense of what
Speaker 1: chronotypes are, there are essentially three broad categories that we
Speaker 1: can fall into. So there are a larks. This is
Speaker 1: about sixteen to seventeen percent of the population, so people
Speaker 1: that you know naturally rush out of bed at five
Speaker 1: or five point thirty in the morning without an alarm,
Speaker 1: and they do their best deep work in the morning,
Speaker 1: first thing in the morning. Then we've got owls at
Speaker 1: the other end of the spectrum. Owls account for about
Speaker 1: twenty percent of the population, and these are people that
Speaker 1: do their best work and they're most energized at night,
Speaker 1: when ironically most workplaces are closed. And then we also
Speaker 1: have middle birds. And middlebirds fall somewhere in between the spectrum,
Speaker 1: but they generally follow the pattern of luck, albeit delayed
Speaker 1: by a couple of hours. So in order to test
Speaker 1: what kind of bird or chronotype you are. The most
Speaker 1: easily available test that is also free and silentifically validated
Speaker 1: is the Morningness Eveningness Questionnaire, and I will link to
Speaker 1: that in the show notes. It's very simple, it will
Speaker 1: only take you a few minutes, and Inventium we can
Speaker 1: actually calculate those results automatically for you, So I'll link
Speaker 1: to that in the show notes. So what to do
Speaker 1: when you understand your chronotype? Well, when it comes to work,
Speaker 1: this is a really great thing for everybody that you
Speaker 1: work with to do and to be really clear on
Speaker 1: what are your coworkers. Are they running on the same
Speaker 1: chronotype as you or are they running on different chronotypes.
Speaker 1: So it's a really good thing for your team to
Speaker 1: all take so that you can understand this as a
Speaker 1: team and start to sync up when you do sort
Speaker 1: of deeper, more intense thinking and collaboration work and when
Speaker 1: you do more shallow work, work that is less cognitively demanding.
Speaker 1: So how we do things at Inventium. We all took
Speaker 1: the Morning This Evening a survey gosh two or three
Speaker 1: years ago now, so we all know each other's chronotypes.
Speaker 1: Most of us are either laks or middlebirds, although our CEO,
Speaker 1: Mish is an owl. So what this means as a
Speaker 1: team when we're trying to sink up schedules, we know
Speaker 1: that when we need to collaborate as a team or
Speaker 1: as a sub team within the Greater Inventium team, we
Speaker 1: set those meetings for the morning, typically between nine and twelve,
Speaker 1: when most of us are at our best in terms
Speaker 1: of brain power. Four things that are more update meetings
Speaker 1: or work in progress or check ins. They're generally designated
Speaker 1: between the hours of twelve and two, when most of
Speaker 1: us are having a dip in energy and it's a
Speaker 1: really good time for less cognitively demanding meetings. And then
Speaker 1: we have a rebound in a late afternoon. So if however,
Speaker 1: we were a team of mostly ours, would probably reverse
Speaker 1: that kind of pattern. Now, when it comes to your
Speaker 1: significant others, perhaps your family, this is certainly a useful
Speaker 1: thing to get your partner to do and see how
Speaker 1: you're different or similar and try to align your schedules
Speaker 1: according to that. But also recognize that kids tend to
Speaker 1: run on and their own specific chronotypes. So generally when
Speaker 1: we start life as a newborn, we're very lakish we
Speaker 1: get up very early in the morning, as I'm sure
Speaker 1: most parents of younger people will attest to. Then when
Speaker 1: we get into our teenage years, we become more our
Speaker 1: like and we come to life at night, which when
Speaker 1: it comes to school hours, is not particularly good. And
Speaker 1: I think that there are a lot of psychologists and
Speaker 1: chronotype researchers that have commented that the way school is
Speaker 1: scheduled for teenagers is certainly not ideal in terms of
Speaker 1: getting the best out of them. But that is a
Speaker 1: whole other conversation. So recognize that your kids will be
Speaker 1: different depending on their ages. And then the more we
Speaker 1: progress towards are older years, we tend to become more lakish,
Speaker 1: so just keep that in mind. So I hope that's
Speaker 1: given you some useful things to think about when it
Speaker 1: comes to chronotypes. As I said, if you don't know
Speaker 1: what your chronotype is, check out the show notes. Just
Speaker 1: click on the episodisode wherever you've listened to this and
Speaker 1: there will be a link to a survey to help
Speaker 1: you figure that out. And if you want more help,
Speaker 1: this is something that we help a lot of our
Speaker 1: clients with at Inventium, making the most of their chronotype
Speaker 1: when it comes to their working life for themselves and
Speaker 1: with their team. So just get in touch and my
Speaker 1: contact details are always in the show notes and I'm
Speaker 1: at Amantha at inventium dot com dot au. So that
Speaker 1: is it for today's show. If you have a core
Speaker 1: question that you would like me to answer, please send
Speaker 1: that through to Amantha at inventium dot com door au.
Speaker 1: And if you know someone that could benefit from thinking
Speaker 1: more about chronotypes, why not share this episode with them.
Speaker 1: So that is it for today's show and I will
Speaker 1: see you next time