When am I at my best?
Chrono-birds, avoiding drunk decision making, and finding your peak mental state...
Meet Linda 👩🏻💼
She’s 31, single, outspoken, and very bright. She was a philosophy major and was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice.
Now, before I tell you more about Linda, let me ask you this. Which of these is more likely?
Linda is a bank teller.
Linda is a bank teller and a feminist.
Researchers found that the majority of people get this question wrong and as they began to isolate the different data points, they found something interesting. People were more likely to get the answer correct earlier in the day.
This is a logic problem which requires analytical processing. This type of work is typically performed best when a person is in their peak mental state. For most of us, that is the morning time.
As the data was dissected further researchers learned that there was one particular subset of people who were more likely to answer the question correctly later in the day—night owls (individuals whose mental peak happens much later in the day and who typically stay up late at night).
Understanding the variables that lead each of us to perform our best is critical to building the most effective work flow.
This week’s question is; “when am I at my best?”
*and in case you’re wondering, the correct answer is A.
WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME…
Why do we need to ask this question? It sounds simple but if you know when you’re at your best, you can begin to reverse engineer your life so that you can experience this more often. Do you know all of the variables that lead you to bring your best self to various situations?
KEYS TO QUESTIONING
Here’s a couple of things that caught my eye as I researched and wrestled with this question…
Lark, nightowl, and third bird. One way to look at this question is to literally consider the word “when.” There are three general chronotypes:
Larks love the morning (14% of all people)
Night owls live for the night (21% of all people)
Third birds are flexible and can adjust as needed (65% of all people)
“All of us experience the day in three stages—a peak, a trough, and a rebound. About three-quarters of us (larks and third birds) experience it in that order. But about one in four people, those whose genes or age make them night owls, experience the day in something closer to the reverse order—recovery, trough, peak.”
Daniel Pink
This is significant when you consider that at 8:00 a.m., professionals and kids dive headfirst into analytical processing. It’s a tough world for night owls who are forced to work against their body.
Another study found that the effect of the difference between your peak mental state and your lowest point of the day is the same as the effect of drinking the legal limit of alcohol. We would likely not want our students or employees drinking while engaged in work, but similar outputs are happening every day.
If you’re a night owl, look for ways you can move some of your analytical work to the backend of the day to ensure you’re performing at your best.
Puzzle pieces. It’s not just the clock that impacts our state of mind and our ability to effectively conduct specific types of work. Diet, sleep, relationships, and environment all impact our performance. Have you been paying attention to these variables and how they impact your ability to perform at the highest levels? Experiment and keep track of the different inputs so that you can build out your own personal formula for peak performance.