Productivity cadences

Despite desperately wanting to be one, I have never been a morning person. Waking up is hard and every single day getting out of bed is a struggle. Because of this seemingly-unshakable ineptitude when to comes to getting up bright and early, I am very much envious of anyone able to make the most of mornings.

I’ve been told most of my life that I would ‘grow out of it’: when I started university, when I began my first job, when I had my first child. These things came and went, and still I continued to be an avid night owl.

In attempting to fit my square-peg-of-a-self into the round hole that is a nine-to-five work day, I’ve come to accept my down times and begun to search for ways make the most of things when I am energised and focused.

Efficiency at all costs

There is so much advice out there these days on how to be the most efficient you can be, on how to optimise your time, or on how to be more productive. It creates a feeling of pressure to be getting something done at all times and at all costs. But everyone needs rest. Everyone needs time to disconnect from the world or to drift through thoughts and make sense of the day - you shouldn’t feel guilty for taking it.

I’ve found that I can work in one of two modes: short bursts of extreme productivity with downtime in between, or prolonged periods at a much slower pace. The curious thing is that no matter what approach I take my output is pretty much the same¹. The big difference is that if I opt for the former I achieve the same but also get time to rest and recuperate.

The hidden benefit of working in waves like this is that often, we need time between absorbing information and wrestling with problems to allow our unconscious mind to put the pieces together. This usually means that periods of rest are soon followed by periods of revelation and sudden progress. When you start to look at periods away from “productive tasks” as time for your subconscious to mull over what you’ve learnt and make sense of it, it’s also much easier to shift any guilt you may feel about taking that time off².

Confidence that your subconscious will come up the answers you need, coupled with an acceptance that you can’t go all-out all of the time, makes for a very natural way to feel out your own productivity cadences too. Feel yourself slowing down and losing traction? Maybe it’s time to walk away for a bit so you can dwell on things. Suddenly had a brilliant idea to solve the coding problem you were facing? Maybe it’s time to open up the laptop, stick some headphones in and crack on with development.

It comes in waves

Productivity cadences aren’t just a daily thing and they aren’t always predictable. I know I usually work best at night, but some days I’m just in a great mood and can spend a full day burning through my to-do list. There are a number of influential factors behind it, but when you start observing your own high and low periods, you’ll probably find that they ebb and flow over the course of weeks or months.

You’ll often find that new projects or intriguing ideas seed you with a spark of motivation. This motivation can be ridden for quite a while in the early days of a new project provided that you’re able to see enough tangible progress. The opposite is also true: if you find yourself bogged down with early setbacks or happen to kick the project off during a period of low motivation, the lack of output can kill it very quickly. Similarly, it can be very hard to find motivation during the tail end of a project where the hard problems have all been solved and you find yourself grinding through the grueling refinement work to see that project over the finish line.

Different personality types can also lend themselves to motivation at different points within a given project: some people find joy in ideation, others in bringing ideas to life, and some in putting new things out into the world and seeing their impact. Which category you find yourself in may vary depending on what you’re doing, and so your ability to easily focus may also wax and wane accordingly.

Whilst how invested in whatever you’re working on might be a major influencer of how long your can remain productive, outside factors also play a big part: how distracted you are by other interesting things, how much stress you feel from other factors in your life, or even just hormonal changes which influence your mood. The more you feel out these cycles in your own productivity rhythm, the easier it’ll be to work with them rather than against them.

Give it a try!

The realities of day-to-day life can make working to your own productivity cadences difficult. Things like less flexible working hours or school runs can definitely get in the way. That said, with the rise of hybrid working it’s easier than ever to regain some level of control over when and how you work.

Provided you can still managed to get done what you need to, there’s no harm in taking it easier during the day and making up the time in the evening instead. Give working to your own natural rhythms a try for a few weeks and see how it works out!