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The Workplace Is Rigged to Favor Morning People

productivityreport.org

61–70 of 122 posts

Re: The Workplace Is Rigged to Favor Morning People

#61

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. Don't like it? There are lots of industries with nighttime work or extensive travel obligations.

I've seen a lot of research (such as [1]) showing that kids waking up early is actually detrimental to them. I feel the causality goes in pretty much the reverse direction that you're implying: the children are forced to get up early to go to school because their parents need to be free of them early and their parents need to be free of them early because they are forced to be at work early. [1]: https://www.ncbi.nlm…

I had a quick skim and I couldn't see anything about what is defined as early and at what age is something early?

Re: The Workplace Is Rigged to Favor Morning People

#63

i 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 u…

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Re: The Workplace Is Rigged to Favor Morning People

#64

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. Don't like it? There are lots of industries with nighttime work or extensive travel obligations.

I've seen a lot of research (such as [1]) showing that kids waking up early is actually detrimental to them. I feel the causality goes in pretty much the reverse direction that you're implying: the children are forced to get up early to go to school because their parents need to be free of them early and their parents need to be free of them early because they are forced to be at work early. [1]: https://www.ncbi.nlm…

That is talking about adolescents (10-19) not kids.

I agree that teenagers should be able to start school later but kids are definitely early birds.

Re: The Workplace Is Rigged to Favor Morning People

#65

Is 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.

As 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 arr…

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Re: The Workplace Is Rigged to Favor Morning People

#67
post #36

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. Don't like it? There are lots of industries with nighttime work or extensive travel obligations.

> 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?

I think children, and higher order mammals in general needing significant sunlight for optimal health and early growth/development came way before night owls.

Re: The Workplace Is Rigged to Favor Morning People

#68
post #17
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you can't. Well, maybe you personally can. But all the actual science says that willpower, sleep hygiene, and sunlight exposure only move the margins a bit for those with inflexible night-time chronotypes. Doing everything "right" is not going to make a 5am natural sleeper into a morning person, it's going to make them into a 3am natural sleeper.

I wonder whether those studies tried alarms.

As a former “night owl” who has largely adjusted to a morningish schedule for approximately a decade… alarms are the devil to me. I only set them as an emergency last resort. Even if I do, I generally try to get to bed early enough I won’t need to rely on them. Alarms and abrupt wake from sleep are immediate and persistent negative rest for me. Even waking too early, checking the time to discover I could rest longer but not by much, is more resting. At least then I get an extra 20 minutes to just quietly ease my brain into the waking world instead of bludgeoning it with blasting sounds I either need to react to immediately or pretend I’m sleeping through.

Re: The Workplace Is Rigged to Favor Morning People

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Morning people like to get up long before the sun rises.

Yeah. 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.

By 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.

Re: The Workplace Is Rigged to Favor Morning People

#70
post #43

I'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.

For 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.
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