Focus on when you are the most productive

There are two types of people — morning people and night people. As best as I can tell, you are born this way and will never change, so why do we fight it? I’m a morning person— it takes me about one minute to wake up in the morning and I am at full power, starting the countdown spiral until I am zapped of energy at 5pm.

Knowing that I am more efficient and creative in the morning, I have adjusted my entire scheduled to optimize essential and creative tasks around my peak performance time — mornings. Each day I have a list of goals that must be completed that day, and my morning is reserved for these tasks. Anything that pops up in the mornings will get scheduled for that afternoon. Rarely does an emergency come up that will derail my morning schedule.

On a typical day, by noon I will have all of my daily goals and tasks checked off my to-do list. Each afternoon is available to be booked with the less critical thinking tasks — meetings, phone calls, editing, etc. Being able to complete my day goals before lunch also boosts my morale to tackle those less interesting afternoon tasks.

How is your week organized? Are mindless meetings occupying your most creative times of the day? Why not flip them around? The benefit of getting your critical daily tasks accomplished before lunch is a pretty compelling reason to change.

I would love to hear how you optimize your schedule. Please send me a Tweet at @wbushee, or drop me an email. After all, shouldn’t we optimize our days?

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