The Sunday Reset
Your Chronotype Is Not Laziness
There is a simple idea that explains why so many hardworking people still feel like they cannot execute: they are working against their own biology.
But first, let me tell you why it matters more than most productivity advice you have ever received.
Let's go.
Quote of the week
The goal is always to work in line with your unique biology, instead of against it.
Oyinkansola's reflection
Somewhere along the way, hustle culture decided that 5AM was the standard. Wake up before the sun, hit the gym, do your deep work, all before most people have had breakfast. And if that schedule does not work for you, the answer is always the same: you need more discipline, more consistency, more willpower to override the laziness. Nobody stops to ask whether the schedule itself is the problem. The truth is that telling a PM-shifted person to do their most important work at 6AM is the same as telling them to run a race with one leg tied. The capacity is there. The timing is just completely wrong for their biology. Most productivity advice tells you what to do. Almost none of it tells you when to do it based on how your brain actually works. And timing is not a minor detail. For a lot of people it is the whole reason things keep not working.
Here is something worth understanding properly.
Your body has a built-in biological clock. It determines when you naturally feel alert, when your focus peaks, when your creativity is highest, and when your energy dips. This is called your chronotype and it is not something you chose or can simply override with enough discipline and coffee.
In 2017 this research won the Nobel Prize in Physiology. The science is not new but the application to how we plan our days is still something most people completely ignore.
There are three broad chronotype categories. AM-shifted people, which is roughly 20 to 25 percent of the population, perform best in the morning and tend to wind down earlier in the evening. PM-shifted people, around 15 to 20 percent, are what most people call night owls. Their peak energy arrives later in the day and they do their best work in the afternoon and evening. The majority of people, over 50 percent, are bi-phasic, which means they have two energy peaks across the day with a natural dip in between.
The problem is that most people plan their days as though everyone is AM-shifted. School starts early. Offices open at 8AM. Productivity culture tells you to do your most important work first thing in the morning. And if your biology says otherwise, the standard advice is to push through it, which means you are consistently working against your own brain and wondering why you cannot seem to execute the way you want to.
When you do not sleep at the time your body wants to sleep and work at the times your body is not designed to work, you are not just less productive in those hours. Over time it affects your ability to maintain focus, your mental health, and how well your sleep actually restores you. You are spending energy fighting your own biology every single day.
Knowing your chronotype changes how you plan. It means you stop scheduling deep work for a time when your brain is in a natural dip. It means you stop feeling like something is wrong with you because you cannot concentrate at 9AM. It means your plan finally works with you instead of against you.
Action
Take a proper chronotype assessment once this week instead of guessing. Then move your hardest work into the hours that match your peak energy and protect that window the way you would protect a meeting.
Your weekly recap
Four honest questions before you plan ahead:
- Are you scheduling your hardest work for the hours when you actually feel sharp, or for the hours hustle culture told you to use?
- When your focus fails in the morning, do you blame discipline, or do you consider that your peak might simply be later?
- What would change this week if you protected your real energy peak the way you currently protect meetings?
- Have you ever measured your chronotype, or have you been guessing?
Something to carry into this week
You are not unproductive. You might just be working at the wrong time for your biology.
Spend one week planning your hardest work during your actual peak window. See what changes.
Get 1% better.