Getting Maximum Value from Your Peak Productive Time
What is the Peak Productive Time?
We all live our lives in rhythms. The time we get sleepy and the time we wake up is dictated by our circadian rhythm. We also have cycles during the day that dictate when we will be most productive. These cycles are called ultradian cycles.
The Productivity Habit uses your Peak Productive Time as the cue to engage in your highest value creative activities; those activities that give you the most meaning and provide the biggest impact on your goals. The opportunity to combine this naturally productive period of the day with the task that will most likely engage your concentration cannot be squandered on just any activity and cannot be left to chance. Like all habits, when you consistently execute the Productivity Habit, day after day, you will learn to crave the mental focus you achieve during this period. In this post, we discuss the Peak Productive Time of your day and how to maximize the value of this period and develop the productivity habit.
Ultradian cycles were first described by Nathaniel Kleitman when he described the existence of the Basic Rest Activity Cycle, focused primarily on the cycles while sleeping, but also affecting our waking hours. During sleeping hours, the cycle is about 90 minutes of maximum restfulness followed by about 20 minutes of maximum activity, which we know as REM sleep. During waking hours, the cycle is period also about 110 minutes, but the active duration is about 90 minutes and the resting time is about 20 minutes.
Our typical daily schedules are not generally organized around these cycles. For reasons dating back to the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, we nominally work 8 hours per day with breaks about every 2-3 hours. Our start and end times are also dictated by cycles bearing no relationship with how we actually function. A consequence of this behavior is that a large number of workers are unproductive and disengaged from their jobs.
If you organize your work around the periods you are naturally most productive, you will focus your attention far better on the work in front of you. And this work is likely the reason you are employed to do what you do in the first place. If you are organized to work when you are unproductive, you will create habits that make you unproductive even during times when you should be energized and enthusiastic.
Even if you adapt to your Ultradian cycle and work for 90 or so minutes and rest for 20, you will not be able to sustain this high level of intense work indefinitely. You have limited productive and creative capacity; once you have burned it for the day you are done. Studies show this capacity is about 3 to 4 hours, or about 2 to 3 ultradian cycles.
That does not mean you need to sleep 20 hours per day. It means you need to organize your day to carve out the best time to be productive on the task requiring high focus, and then organize the rest of your day to meet with people, reading, achieving your learning objectives, or making sales calls. We are capable of engaging with others outside of the peak productive time. I also find it useful to plan administrative tasks during your lower productive time.
Determining Your Peak Productive Time
Your Peak Productive Time is very individual. You probably have some idea of times when you are very productive and times when you are not. This will be a good starting point for determining the timing of your peak productive period. If you don’t know where to start, a rule of thumb is you are more likely to be in your peak productive time in the morning. On average we tend to be most productive in mid-morning and least productive in mid-afternoon.
You should reflect on whether this aligns with times you have felt your most productive, when you have been able to concentrate the best. If you have a morning routine (and you should!) I recommend this productive time should follow shortly after. You will be most energized to get started, and it is less likely you will be interrupted. I find I need a short rest period after my routine to prepare for my peak productive time.
Once you have created the routine of scheduling your peak productive time, you need to monitor how you feel during this time. It will probably take a couple of weeks before you are working the schedule well. You should write a short note about how effective your time was. Did you achieve a high level of focus? Did the time pass quickly? Were you able to ignore distractions? Did you look back your product and feel satisfaction?
It is also worth reviewing how you feel throughout the day to help get a feel for the activities you should schedule in your low productive times and the best times to takes mental rests.
Once you have settled on a time of day, you should fine-tune the durations of your peak periods. The rule of thumb is 80 to 90 minutes of peak time followed by 20 minutes of rest. This varies by individual. I have some periods during the day of less than an hour but others that are about 120 minutes. But then I come to a standstill!
What Task Should You Do?
Schedule the tasks that will have the maximum impact on your strategic objectives. You want to invest the highest amount of concentration on those activities that will have the maximum impact on your business. Activities that will move the needle on your business should always take priority.
Of course, the activities that have maximum impact on your objectives may not be the most effective activities for you to perform. You should choose those activities where your personal impact will be the greatest and you have the greatest motivation to make a difference. For example, if your primary value is writing code, don’t schedule tax planning as your Peak Productive Activity. This should be delegated to someone who loves tax planning who should be working on this during their peak productive time!
I have a short planning cycle early in the morning to ensure my schedule blocks out my Peak Productive Time and that I have planned for the highest impact action to occur in that time. I decide every morning what the most important thing I can do for my business. This planning session may include members of my team to ensure we are all focused in the same direction. When I am managing a critical project, I schedule the team standup for 30 minutes prior to this. As a team, we decide the most critical items that we each need to accomplish to advance the project. That may dictate what I do in my Peak Productive Time.
Creating a Productive Environment
It is important the space you work in is conducive to the intense focus you want to exercise. You can hurt your peak productive time by allowing outside distractions to divert your attention. It is an unfortunate consequence of modern office design that most of us work in common areas, with people walking around us and hallway meetings conducted next to us.
On some days these distractions may not matter; it is possible you can achieve the state of total and complete concentration while working at Starbucks. But for most people, on most days, we need to eliminate distraction in order to get started effectively and then to stay focused. For example, when I am writing and get stuck on a word or concept that just won’t work, I can lose my state of total concentration. My mind can wander to the daily news or the state of the weather. Minimizing these distractions allows me to better work through these periods of instantaneous loss of focus.
A good solution is to book a conference room. Many companies provide bookable spaces for individuals to work in who require a period of quiet concentration. There are many advantages; it is unlikely the phone will ring. You will not be distracted by the report sitting on the edge of your desk that you meant to read. If it is a truly closed space, you will not see people walking by you want to speak with, or overhear conversations that obviously could benefit from your input.
The point here is to bring only those items you require to work on your most significant activity. You should not try to transplant your desk to the conference room. If you can leave your phone behind, so much the better!
Being Unproductive is Also a Habit
There are many ways we can defeat our peak productive time. We love to react to the sound of a text message arriving. There is addictive behavior associated with reacting to outside stimulus. We receive habit-initiating cues frequently throughout the day. Even before we realize it, we start to respond. This habit cycle is automatic; you will allow the habit routine to run to its conclusion. And then you will rationalize the importance of the interruption and even applaud your ability to multitask. These are all part of the neurological processes associated with habits. But you are being deceived by your own brain.
Multitasking does not work. We are neurologically incapable of multitasking. Instead we “serially single task", which requires at least some amount of unproductive time while we change contexts. Do not allow your peak productive time to be fragmented by trying to manage several tasks simultaneously. The purpose of this time is to focus on the single most important activity that will drive your business. It is highly unlikely that any event from outside that you did not anticipate supersedes your single most important activity.
Park distracting thoughts. Be prepared to make aide-memoires of things that pop into your head. I have a notebook and I make a minimal note, enough to recall the item when I am done my quiet time. Gathering these items and making them actionable is a good activity for later in the day when you are not as productive.
Defer e-mail and phone calls. We have been conditioned to respond to random inputs instantly. There is no need for this and most highly productive people batch process emails, texts, and phone calls. Eliminate your phone notifications. If there are items that could demand your urgent attention arrange with an administrator to handle the calls and alert you to items that cannot be avoided. Your voice mail greeting can provide additional information on how to reach you, in the case of an emergency.
In my Calendar, the first 2.5 hours every day are scheduled as private time, that cannot have meetings scheduled. I try to tell people to contact me after this period or that I will get back to them at a specific time.
Conclusion
Our energy levels ebb and flow throughout the day just as they do at night. Our daytimes have periods where our ability to concentrate seems unbounded! Unfortunately, we have been conditioned throughout our lives to believe we should be uniformly productive, except when we are privileged to be granted breaks at predetermined times during the workday. And worse yet, management at seemingly advanced companies, where creative and intensely focused work should be encouraged, how people work may be dictated to defeat performing at our best. It is well documented that giving people control of how they achieve their goals is maximally motivating.
These constraints have unintended consequences.
People are trained to be distracted during their peak productive time. So much so, that most people may not even be aware when their peak productive time is. In the absence of concerted effort to exploit the time when you will best perform, you will organize meetings, take phone calls, and work on mundane albeit important tasks.
More damaging is that people learn to be equally unproductive all day. If you are not mindful of the periods where you should be focusing your full attention on significant tasks, will treat all tasks all times of the day with equal intention. That quick look at the day’s news or just a glance at you friend’s Instagram post is no more significant at 10 am than at 3 pm.
You have an opportunity to emulate the practice of the most productive people by searching for your peak productive time and scheduling the most impactful activities during this time. The more frequently you achieve the state of total concentration at your most high energy times of the day, the more often you will look back on your day as being a raging success.