… is sleep. Well, some successful people, anyway. Like James Joyce. And Alexis Ohanian, cofounder of Reddit.
Here’s a shameful little secret: Like these people, I don’t get up super early. In fact, I hate getting up early. Most days, I’m lucky if I’m up by 8:30 a.m.
I don’t run 5 miles before breakfast. I need a metric ton of coffee to make sense of anything before noon. I am definitely not a morning person.
But somehow I manage to get by, and even enjoy some successes here and there. Because — despite what you may have heard — there’s nothing wrong with being a person who doesn’t subscribe to the rise-and-grind lifestyle. In fact, there’s plenty of research that says just the opposite:
- Early risers have higher levels of cortisol, which is associated with stress.
- Night owls are more intelligent, according to the London School of Economics.
- People who stay up late are more likely to be creative, says this research from Italy.
There are many paths to productivity — not just the one that says you must be up and at ’em before the sun rises. The key is figuring out when you are most productive: for me, that’s the late morning and early afternoon, with second wind in the evening.
So while you early risers are tucking yourselves in, I’m still plugging away. It takes all kinds.
April 15, 2015