Did you know that not everyone is the same when it comes to their circadian rhythms? The term early morning person or late night person is a general term to describe the normal sleep patterns and needs of people. Some people, like my own father, are naturally early morning people—that is, they generally wake up very early in the morning before most people and tend to go to sleep earlier also. Some people wake up much later in the day, but are able to stay up much longer throughout the night.
But for each of us, there is a certain time of the day...or night, when we are at our physical and mental peak. This is the window of time where we are motivated to perform at our highest levels and it's the time when we have the most potential to get things done. This is known as your "prime time," or your peak performance window.
So ask yourself when is your prime time? Do you shine early in the morning? Or is it in the afternoon or the evenings? If you do not know exactly then I suggest using this simple assessment tool described below:
How to Assess your Prime Time and your Slug Timed
The purpose of this self-administered assessment is to identify what your window of optimal performance is during the day. This is very easy to do and will take one week of regular information gathering to make effective.
Start by writing the dates for the next seven days on seven pieces of paper. Only one day per sheet of paper. So if I started on January 1st, then I would have seven pieces of paper ranging from January 1st to January 7th.
For each dated page in your log, I want you to write the hours of the day that you are awake in increments of 1-hour. So if you regularly wake up at 7:00 AM and go to bed at around 10:00 PM every day, then on your logbook, you would write 7:00AM at the top all the way to 10:00PM at the bottom.
I want you to make sure you have your logbook with you at all times so that you don't miss entries. At each hour of your waking day, I want you to log in a number from 0 to 10 on how much energy you feel you have. Zero is no energy at all and 10 is full of energy. I know there is a subjective quality to this assessment, but you are comparing this to only yourself, so really if you keep your assessment of your own energy level consistent, you are going to get a reliable reading at the end. I guess I should define what I mean by energy. Energy, in terms of this assessment, is how alive or awake you are. It's how motivated you are to get things done. Obviously if you are feeling tired, then your energy level is going to be low. Energy is the motivating force that you possess to get things done.
Once you collect your data for the entire week, now you want to analyze it. There are two ways of doing this. You can look over the pages in your logbook and just see for yourself when your peak performance times are throughout the day. Or a more methodical and scientific way of doing this is to plot it on a graph. To do this, simply use the horizontal axis for the time factor (i.e. 7AM TO 10PM) and use the vertical axis for the energy level coefficient (10 at the top, 0 at the bottom). Then take your data and place dots where they fall on the graph. You will have overlaps, but don't worry about this as we are looking for a general pattern. After you place all the dots, draw a line connecting the dots, making sure you ignore the extremes and go for the median of the dot placements. You will then have an accurate graph of your peak times and your "slug times" throughout your waking day.
Making use of your Prime Time
Now that you know your window of optimal performance, you will want to organize your highest priority projects and tasks to fall within this window of time. These projects and tasks should be of the nature that are the most physically or mentally demanding of you. You want your body to be able to handle those challenges and you want to have the concentration to be able to focus in on the tasks and to create solutions. Conversely, you might want to schedule the non-priority, mindless tasks for when you are at your lowest times. Examples of mindless tasks are: doing chores, reading email, cleaning up your desk, following up on phone calls, etc.
By identifying your prime time and your slug time in the day, you can make the most use out of your day and maximize your productivity.
