No, You Don’t Have to Be a Morning Person to Be Productive and Successful

The myth of the “millionaire morning”

Did you know that you can never achieve your goals if you get up later than 05:00 am?

It’s true.

Just read all these productivity articles and books about “the 5 habits of insanely productive people” and “the morning routine you need to be successful.” Or look at a business insider’s roundup of “21 successful people who get up incredibly early.”

Clearly, getting up early gives you superpowers.

But what if you prefer to get most of your work done in the afternoon or at night?

Will you be doomed to watch all of those early birds around you succeed with ease while you keep toiling away for years without having much to show for it?

The myth that all successful people get up early

If you’ve been trying to get out of bed early because you want to emulate successful early risers, but keep struggling to find your rhythm in the morning, fret not.

The idea that all successful people get up early is a myth.

Sure, Tim Cook might get up at 03:45, and Gary V. at 06:00 am. But does that mean you should too? What about Pharell Williams, who gets up around 09:00 am, or Mark Zuckerberg, who has always been a late riser? Clearly, waking up late works for them.

Why are the personal development industry obsessed with rising early and the perfect morning routine for peak productivity?

Successful CEOs and statesmen prove that you neither need to be an early bird nor have an ideal morning routine to achieve your goals.

For example, Aaron Levie, Co-founder of BOX, gets up at 10:00 am and clears out his email while still in bed.

Winston Churchill reportedly got up at 07:00 and stayed in bed until 11:00, reading the newspapers and dictating to his secretaries.

How you spend your time matters more than when you get up

I will let you in on a secret: Your day has 24 hours, no matter when you get up.

All those benefits you supposedly get from getting up before everyone else are still available even if you decide to start your day at 11:00 am.

You can still work on your most important tasks first. You can still follow an elaborate morning routine if you want to. And you can still get blocks of “deep work” if you know how to set clear boundaries.

Why force yourself out of bed at 05:00 am if you still don’t get any substantial work done because you feel groggy for the first 4 hours?

Is sacrificing sleep to get a few more hours in the day really a recipe for success when you lack focus and creativity because your brain is severely sleep-deprived? What if you slept until 09:00 am instead and spent your day alert and focused? How would that impact your productivity?

When a person gets up tells you nothing about how they structure their day

What do you know about a person when they tell you when they get up

Correct. Exactly nothing.

It doesn’t matter when you get up. What matters is how you structure your day and what you do with your waking hours.

For example, I have been an early bird all my life. However, I also worked the night shift for a while and started my days at 04:00 pm. During that time, I learned that I can also be productive in the late afternoons and evenings — a time most productivity gurus label as “being full of distractions.”

Sure, my phone beeps more at 04:00 pm than at 04:00 am. Still, it is up to me if I let myself be distracted or take measures to have distraction-free time. It is up to me to switch my phone off and let people know I don’t want to be disturbed.

Nowadays, I follow a polyphasic lifestyle and get up between 03:00 and 04:00 each morning. I work for a few hours, go running, and take a few naps during the day.

This allows me to work with my natural cycles without stressing about what times is best to get up or if I got enough sleep during the night. I have always had trouble sleeping through the night and am more alert and productive than ever before by following this schedule.

However, just because this works for me doesn’t mean it will work for you.

That’s why I am a big fan of self-experimentation. By testing ideas, I found that many popular productivity hacks don’t work for me — sleeping 8 hours per night is one of them.

Adjust your schedule to your natural rhythm to achieve peak productivity

Science tells us that some people are naturally early risers, and some are late risers. Contrary to popular belief, you can not turn yourself into an early riser. If you are a morning or evening person is determined mainly by genetics.

Sure, you can force yourself to get up early every day, but you work against your body if you do that.

If you are always grumpy in the morning and feel like you don’t function optimally until noon you are likely a night owl. Your body thinks you are still asleep when you get up at the crack of dawn.

If you are a naturally late riser, your best strategy for peak productivity is not to force yourself to become an early riser. Your best strategy is to adjust your work schedule to your body’s natural rhythm.

Those who function well in the mornings have the advantage that our society favors early risers. And many of those famous early risers are not successful because they get up early but because they do what works for them and follow a schedule that matches their body clocks.

But late risers, like the writer Gertrude Stein or Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, show us that it doesn’t matter when you start your workday.

What truly matters is what you do during your working hours.

And if you work best at night, you don’t have to turn yourself into a morning person.

You simply have to be you.

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