When do you feel most productive?
In a recent reflection on circadian rhythms and work, Lisa Leong makes a simple but important point: not everyone does their best thinking at the same time of day. Some people are sharp early. Some gather speed later. Some can make good decisions in the morning but should not be trusted with anything too delicate at 3.30 in the afternoon. https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/this-working-life/why-9am-meetings-might-be-failing-your-team-/106545792
This matters because productivity is not just about effort. It is about timing. We often behave as though every hour is morally identical, as though a meeting at 9 am, a hard conversation after lunch, and a piece of strategic writing late in the day all draw from the same internal supply. But they don’t.
I know this in my own life. I am most productive early in the day, when I am rested from the previous night’s sleep and the world has not yet started making claims on me. That is when I write best. And writing is not merely how I record my thinking. It is how I discover what I think. A sentence comes, then another, and gradually the fog clears.
Walking helps too. Out walking, I am not obviously producing anything. I am not answering emails or attending meetings or completing tasks. But often I return home with something I did not have before: an idea, a better question, an insight, a sentence that has fallen into place.
So perhaps one of the secrets of good work is learning to see our own rhythms, and the rhythms of others. A wise leader will not simply ask, “How do I get more from people?” but “When are people most able to give their best?” That question is kinder, but it is also more productive.
Technological advances may make us faster at many tasks, but it will not make us more human. It will not teach us when a person is tired, when a team has been pushed too hard, when a conversation needs to wait until morning, or when someone does their finest thinking. If we want to live well in the present age, we may need to become exceptionally good at rhythm: our own, and one another’s.
The Afterword 
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