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The Workplace Is Rigged to Favor Morning People
- im-a-baby 4y agoIs it possible that morning people are more productive than people who prefer later times of day. This article is filled with things that are "biased" towards morning people, but didn't actually provide any evidence that this bias is unfounded.
- YokoZar 4y agoThe article mentions that people with late chronotypes get less sleep due to early work hours, and that lack of sleep causes productivity issues.
- cassianoleal 4y agoIt's not just less sleep. In my personal case (I know, anecdote blah blah) I can be very productive, happy and more functional if I can consistently sleep for 6-6.5h per night as long as my wake up time is no earlier than 9:30-10:00. I don't even need caffeine at all, and I can still be perfectly fine with the occasional 5-5.5h sleep night. OTOH, I might have slept 9h every night for days but if I have to be up earlier I will be miserable, my brain will be foggy, I'll have less energy and I tend to injure myself a lot more working out.
- version_five 4y agoAs a counterpoint, I have worked with many "night people" who will work very late into the night on problems, sticking with them until they are solved. I'm a morning person, more by necessity of having other stuff to do in the evening, and I find I end up being more likely to drop a problem without finishing it because I have to leave work. It's all anecdotal, but especially in software, I see how people who have arranged things to work late, without a "hard stop" could also be very productive (even if it's not healthy)
- SketchySeaBeast 4y agoThat seems to run counter to the idea that stopping and walking away rather than just grinding until it's solved is beneficial to problem solving.
- karmakaze 4y agoThere's a difference between grinding and being in a flow state at 'quitting time'.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- superchroma 4y agonot the ones I've worked with.
- andsoitis 4y ago> people who brag about sleeping only a few hours a night Just because you're a morning person does not mean that you sleep only a few hours a night.
- collegeburner 4y agoi think this is a good thing and not "rigged". here's why: 1. you can train yourself to be a morning person. this is coming from someone who is not at all a morning person by nature. so it's not unfair, what it does do is weed out people who don't bother to do so. it selects for disciplined people with a strong work ethic. 2. it is easier to be a night person than a morning person. inertia says it is easier to stay up later than get up earlier. so again, it selects for people who are disciplined.
- pid-1 4y agoAnedote, but as I got older (>30) being a morning person became easier and easier.
- q-big 4y agoFor me, it is the other way round. Thus: YMMV
- gryBrd1987 4y ago
- masswerk 4y agoSorry, this is not how it works. (What actually happens: You're laying in bed awake and eventually raise to shuffle to work without any sleep.)
- collegeburner 4y agothanks for telling me what's actually happening to myself. you're wrong, it works fine. and it's worked for a bunch of friends as well. why do you think "this is not how it works"? i may have only an anecdote and some reasoning to support my point of view, but you have squat to support yours.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- sublinear 4y agoWill the pseudopolitical propaganda about the workplace ever end on HN? This topic is not just dead but eviscerated roadkill.
- exolymph 4y ago
- masswerk 4y agoWell, this is actually an issue. This was killing me slowly. I had to quit and become self-employed, and there's no way of going back as long as things are arranged and organized like this. It is limiting my options drastically.
- onlycoffee 4y agoI am not a morning person and this article hits home for me every day.
- trillic 4y agoEarly to sleep, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise. In my case I have no choice, my SO works in medicine so I’m up when she’s up at 5 whether I like it or not. I’ve gotten a lot more productive since we started sharing a space. Is it the early rise, or the constant presence of the opposite sex?
- astrange 4y agoHaving someone else around you is enough to make you more active and on-task. https://chadd.org/adhd-news/adhd-news-adults/could-a-body-double-help-you-increase-your-productivity/ https://chadd.org/adhd-news/adhd-news-adults/could-a-body-do... Well, as long as they're not distracting you at least.
- fknorangesite 4y ago> Early to sleep, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise Early to sleep, early to rise, makes a man stupid and blind in the eyes. See how easy that is?
- arrow7000 4y agoAh yes that reliable way of proving a claim: quoting a rhyme
- Volrath89 4y ago> Is it the early rise, or the constant presence of the opposite sex? Funny because for me it was totally the opposite. When I lived together with my ex wife it was super difficult for me to wake up early, because she didn't, so I was just so tempted to go back and cuddle with her until 8 AM when she actually woke up. During the pandemic because we were both working from home, we'd always take a nap together after lunch as well. Now that I am divorced I have no problem getting up at 5:30 AM everyday and avoiding daily naps. And I am also way more productive compared to when I was married.
- lr4444lr 4y agoYeah, because more senior workers eventually have kids, and kids need a proper morning wake up, and child care doesn't run until 10 PM. Don't like it? There are lots of industries with nighttime work or extensive travel obligations.
- brendoelfrendo 4y agoHm, I think this is backwards; there's plenty of evidence that we wake up kids way too early. Really, school schedules are as they are to fit around work schedules, not the other way around. https://www.cdc.gov/sleep/features/schools-start-too-early.html https://www.cdc.gov/sleep/features/schools-start-too-early.h...
- lr4444lr 4y agoAdolescents are only "children" in the modern social sense. Young children don't have that shift, and sunlight is important for them: https://parentingscience.com/kids-need-daylight/ https://parentingscience.com/kids-need-daylight/
- naniwaduni 4y agoAre the "more senior workers" with the clout to set the work schedule the ones that have pre-adolescent children, though? That would be one hell of a coincidence, and doesn't match up with parents-of-young-children I know.
- culopatin 4y agoExcept that school hours end at 3:30 around me and I don’t understand what I would be supposed to do if I continued having my current schedule
- wnevets 4y ago> Yeah, because more senior workers eventually have kids, and kids need a proper morning wake up, and child care doesn't run until 10 PM. Which do you think came first, jobs that start in the morning or child care that start in the morning?
- Spooky23 4y agoI’m sure. It’s pretty obvious. If you have a choice in the matter, early start gives you superpowers and is evidence of discipline. I typically start work at 7:30. I have about 2-2.5 hours of actual, mostly undisturbed productivity. Early in my career my managers thought I was a genius because I knew everything. I did - because I read stuff. Nowadays I’m a boss guy, and I’m fully up to speed and ready to go at my 9:15 standup, and half my colleagues are running behind to make the meeting. Note that I’m not a “morning person”. I hate waking up at 5:30. But my kids need to get to school, my wife tends to start early and I don’t see a point in lounging around. People would be better off focusing on taking care of themselves instead of trying to make laziness some sort of protected medical condition.
- kortilla 4y ago> and is evidence of discipline. No it’s not. It’s evidence of a morning person.
- brendoelfrendo 4y ago"I do what works for me and people who can't are undisciplined" is exactly the kind of take that has people saying the system is rigged. "People would be better off focusing on taking care of themselves," well, I would say that getting enough sleep and not caring about when exactly others start their day could be a part of that.
- ABeeSea 4y agoGetting sufficient, quality sleep is taking care of yourself.
- orangecat 4y ago"Starting early shows discipline" is exactly as valid as "staying late shows dedication", i.e. not at all.
- aeyes 4y agoI don't follow, whatever you do from 7:30-9:30 I used to do just as well from 22:00-24:00. Family obligations unfortunately made splitting the work day in half like this very hard so I now start earlier, feel tired all day and am much less productive. I'm just not a morning person, before 9:00 I just feel miserable. It doesn't matter if it is work, exercise, reading or studying - nothing feels right.
- karaterobot 4y agoThe sun is also fairly biased in this respect, "coincidentally" lighting up the times when morning people like to work, while keeping night owls in the dark, where it is harder to do many jobs. How long will we allow this oppression, I wonder?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- tomrod 4y agoA few dozen to a few trillion years, depending.
- ironmagma 4y agoMorning people like to get up long before the sun rises.
- rhaway84773 4y agoYeah. That’s why the sun is rigged in their favor. It chooses to rise a few hours after the morning people decide to wake up.
- ironmagma 4y agoBy the same logic, it’s rigged in favor of the night people as they go to bed a few hours after it chooses to set.
- MattGaiser 4y agoMorning people frequently rise well before the sun.
- pc86 4y agoIt's possible you've missed the point.
- Macha 4y ago
- Wolfenstein98k 4y ago"Morning people" stuff tends to select for conscientiousness. Not a perfect correlation, but a positive one nonetheless. I say this as a serious night owl, and someone who is intellectually conscientious (I love learning and mastering) but traditionally not (it takes me a lot of effort to be organised and disciplined to a reasonable standard).
- 29athrowaway 4y agoTends to select for agreeableness. I deeply care about my work but I don't agree that it has to be done 9 to 5.
- jpambrun 4y agoAgreeableness sounds like something to optimize for when selectig prospective employees as well.
- 29athrowaway 4y agoIt depends. If you work on sales, being agreeable is not necessarily good for you.
- livueta 4y agoTo me, the idea that there's any correlation there at all is frankly bizarre and smacks of presenteeism. Feels like a PHB-holdover we should all be rightfully trashing as an anachronism. Also, how is this even supposed to benefit anyone in an age of geodistributed teams? Again, caring about what time someone gets up seems like a smell of an outdated organizational structure.
- oblib 4y agoI've never been a morning person, but I have worked circles around some of those who valued that far more than it's worth. Anyone who thinks getting up early makes them superior to those who don't is only boosting their ego. Getting stuff done right it what's truly important.
- nradov 4y agoFor many of us, getting stuff done requires real-time collaboration with our colleagues. Even in the software field, only a minority of jobs are primarily based on solo tasks that can be done at odd hours.
- ethanwillis 4y agoit's always morning somewhere.
- soco 4y agoFor many of us, not all 8 hours of work require real-time collaboration with our colleagues - thank heavens. There's more than enough overlapping to accommodate everybody.
- alisonatwork 4y agoThere is a way around for this for most people in our industry. Work in Europe with an American team. Or work in Asia with a European team. Or work for a Silicon Valley company on the east coast.
- eyelidlessness 4y agoIt’s a bit more than a couple hours before midnight in my current timezone. I’m probably more tired than I ought to be given it’s mid-evening where I’ve lived the better part of 20 years, but I’m adapting to my current circumstances. I’ll probably wake around 7, and probably begin work between 9–10. Some of my team will begin work around the same time but several hours earlier by their clock. Some will probably be nearing the end of their workday. We’re all doing pretty well with the overlapping hours we have and make efforts to overlap them as well as we can as needed. No one’s being judged positively or negatively on the hours they keep, we’re adults doing our jobs and taking it seriously. If your workplace is rigged to favor such arbitrary competition, there’s probably much more wrong with your workplace. I’m sure that’s real and I don’t mean this to be dismissive. But this definitely strikes me as more a symptom than a particular problem in itself.
- zabzonk 4y agoi always tried to get into work just before my boss did. seemed to be a success. and realistically, i can only do about 6 hours a day, no matter what time i get up.
- dirtyid 4y agoHow much of this is from historic inertia of morning people continuously promoting other morning people because their schedules aligned.
- defrost 4y agoThe ghost of 2017 wants its opinionated latitude and collaborative timezone unaware puff piece back again.
- frankus 4y agoI have the opposite problem. My energy peaks in the mid-morning, which my workplace has set aside for meetings (partly because we have team members in an earlier time zone, and partly because the manager who set it up that way had a late evening energy peak). So by the time I have an uninterrupted stretch of time, I’m often too drained to really get much done.
- tluyben2 4y agoI wake up 5 am, work until 11 am and that was the day besides maybe some meetings. It works well; 4 hours of quiet coding, 2 hours working together on code and then maybe 30-60 minutes in management meetings. I have tried different setups but my peak is 7-10; it doesn’t really matter when I slept or how etc. I used to be a night owl and I tried normal hours (9-5); nothing is as productive as what I currently do.
- cudgy 4y agoYou don’t shower or eat breakfast? Just roll out of bed into a zoom meeting?
- mamediz 4y agoI am not a morning person and sometimes I think about it, is it possible that my natural cycle is x hours of sleep and y hours awake and that x + y is not 24? I think this is my case because every now and then I can wake up early only to loose track, then go back to stay up longer in the night and wake up late again.
- foogazi 4y agoThere is no conspiracy or rigging- it’s because of sunlight > Additionally for working parents, the hours one can work largely must coincide with school hours as well as times of day when the more affordable option of group childcare, as opposed to private childcare, is available. Dual working parents, like compulsory schooling, are a recent invention The morning work/school schedule is because of sunlight Who would send their kids to school at night or in the dark Think of the history of humanity and thinking of working the fields or construction at night because you are a “night person”
- paulryanrogers 4y agoHumanity has spent more time in small nomadic tribes, often needing to maintain fire constantly lit and keep watch. There is some evidence that a random spread of rhythms is the norm.
- cassianoleal 4y ago> The morning work/school schedule is because of sunlight Does it move up when it's still dark at 10AM?
- foogazi 4y ago> It’s not that they couldn’t get into bed earlier. It’s that doing so wouldn’t make them sleepy. Do late night people need less sleep than morning people ? Wake up early and you’ll be sleepy at the same time as the morning types
- yunwal 4y agoTried it, doesn’t work, I don’t fall asleep any earlier. Same reason if you slept in an extra 5 hours that wouldn’t make it any easier to stay up until 3.
- deepburner 4y agoI'm so tired of these "jobs are rigged for social people!!!" or morning people or organized people kinds of posts. There's no rigging, if you want to work alone from 10 PM to 6 AM that's in your prerogative but just because most jobs require collaboration or most people prefer to sleep at night (gasp!) and work while the sun is out does not mean it's "unfair" to you; it just means that you're an outlier. Also the tone of this write-up is unnecessarily patronizing by accusing "morning people" of foregoing their health by sleeping less; hasn't it occured to the author that they might be sleeping early? I'm writing this as a person who regularly sleeps at 3 AM and works alone in a very disorganized manner, but I have no illusions about the healthiness or ubiquity of my lifestyle.
- quantified 4y agoConstruction work is rigged for morning people. Not every job is at a desk.
- soco 4y agoThe crux of the topic is that there's always stigma if you're different, and having a different schedule makes you different.
- jpambrun 4y agoHaving a different schedule means you not here when it's most effective for the group. That's not a stigma, that's a fact.
- ofrzeta 4y agoWhatever a morning person is. When I get up at 4 or 5am I am having a hard time talking to a colleague before 9am. Calling it quits at 2pm will raise eyebrows and meetings will be scheduled until 5pm or later.
- number6 4y agoThe game was rigged from the start.
- mushtar 4y agoIt's actually the opposite from my experience. It's very easy to get asked to work late (getting asked "hey, can you look at the build blocker?" towards the end of the day) compared to being asked to work early (barring having to acomodate any meetings with time zone differences). It's just an anecdote, but I've never once been asked to work early in my software development career.
- cassianoleal 4y agoAre you saying you've never been in a workplace where people are expected to be in the office / online / at standup by 9:00 or 10:00? Being asked to work late _on top of_ having started the day in the morning is hardly the opposite of what the OP is arguing about.
- jemmyw 4y agoSo many arguments back and forth in the comments on this one. I am a night owl and always have been. When we had kids it was hard, but my wife and I seemed to revert back to staying up late very quickly. Our kids are homeschooled and usually get up between 8am and 10am. Working from home too means we don't have much pressure which is nice.
- incomingpain 4y agoI'm a morning person. 2 jobs ago I would show up to work around 7am. I avoid all traffic, get a quiet office to get work done. Bang off a couple quick early morning tickets. Everyone else? They show up sometimes between 8 and 9; almost always grouchy and complaining about everything. Make their coffee as slow as possible, saunter back to their desk, drink it as slow as possible. But then when I leave earlier than they do... they complain. So my boss allowed them to leave early with me. So everyone basically got 1 hour free pay every day except me? Because I'm a morning person? how very motivating. 1 job ago. I was an outbound tech, I was given security code and key to the office. In case I need to get supplies from the office on a weekend or afterhours. Lots of people worked there, usually 2 people were in the office before me. One day, I show up and nobody was there. So I opened up the office, but I neglected to do the morning chores I didn't know about. Primarily starting the coffee maker. I'm a starbucks latte type, soI didn't partake in their 1970s drip coffee. Not to mention they charged $3/cup to their employees... There was an official investigation by one of the owners to determine who opened the office and didn't put on coffee. It wasn't an investigation into why the normal people werent there.. when they figure out it was me... they say they cant trust me to be able to open and be alone in the office. Like what... then they order 3 new people to be in the office. They all hated me like nobody's business. 1 of those people had kids and used to drop them off to school before coming to the office but couldn't anymore.
- lamontcg 4y agoJudging from the comments, it looks like all the people who desperately want to go back to totally normal with everyone else behaving perfectly normal like they do, are getting very noisy. And any bad economic outcomes will be blamed on all our remote work and quiet quitting and the beatings are going to continue until the morale improves around here...
- amai 4y agoRelated: School also starts too early: https://www.cdc.gov/sleep/features/schools-start-too-early.html https://www.cdc.gov/sleep/features/schools-start-too-early.h...