Proactivity Linked to Early Risers
I’m reading studies that indicate proactive (not necessarily productive) can often be linked to those who are “up with the lark”, while those who define themselves as “evening people” are likely to be less proactive in the workplace. One report said: “The research, which surveyed 367 student participants, found a correlation between their self-reported ‘morningness’ (measured by their answers to questions about how easy they find it to get up in the morning and how alert they feel) and their self-reported proactivity (measure by their agreement to the questions), was statistically significant.
This is because, while it is fair to assume that those who are able to spring out of bed at the crack of dawn are likely to feel more proactive, there has long been an assumption that any source of early vitality could be short-lived once the day really gets going.”
In other words, morning people? Proactive. Evening people? Not so much?
What do you think? Would you agree? Let the arguments begin!
I agree with the idea, being a morning person myself, but if the inference is that evening people tend to be slackers, I don´t think that’s true. My wife is of that type, and she accomplishes just as much, she just does it later in the day or evening. Maybe the problem is that we are forcing evening people to attempt to be their most productive in a time slot that doesn´t fit how they are wired.
I agree also that you could make the case that Jesus was a morning person, but to stretch that to we are failing God somehow if we don´t function that way is harsh. I read once that “no man is worth his salt if he doesn’t get up every morning an hour before sunrise to pray.” Thank God the quality of my relationship with God is not determined by the standards other men want to set for me.
well i think morning people are more productive in the morning yes.. I know my brain has a short cut until 11 am or so, it’s like, it just doesn’t work at all. (please do not say go to bed early because it won’t work)
But i have very good ability to work aaaall night thru and be productive in the late night hours.. So maybe we just try to force people like me to fit in the early morning peoples life – just because they were up first 🙂
totaly agre with Emilio…
I too am a rip-roaring night owl, and my tank gets cranked around midnight. Like Emilio said, the HR world has tried to create a nice cube-shaped 9 to 5 culture. My best writing has come out of the 3am – 6am time slot, just before the sun comes up. I would suggest that this HR survey deemed their idea of productivity with routine-type accuracy, And the ones considered unproductive, were the project oriented, creative types, whose productivity is on a different level.
(seen Ferriss’s ‘4-Hour Workweek’? http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/).
I am very much an ‘evening person’. I am actually about as much of a ‘night owl’ as you can be. I don’t really get going mentally until somewhere around midnight and I hit a good stride until well after sun-up. If it weren’t for my wife, I would sleep all day and not wake up until 7 or 8pm to work.
Being this way, I have produced a weekly international broadcast, been a spot producer and special motion graphics designer for a huge international ministry, and am working on my own freelance business. I have known great successes and was only slowed down by a layoff. I would think that that was pretty productive for being one of those non-“proactive” ‘evening people’.
The problem is that we’re conditioned to believe that the only productivity of any worth is that which happens between 9am and 5pm. This is very unfair and forces a lot of really great people to work when their abilities are the most impaired which makes them appear to be losers, slackers, and unproductive.
I find that no matter the time of day, I become more proactive if there is chocolate or Starbucks involved…
God bless this study! Now I have proof for my preaching about early mornings value. In the morning you have less distractions than at night. Give me a cup of coffee and the quiet of the morning and I can read a ton of stuff and write to boot! As I think about it 90% of what I have written has been in the morning! Now for another cup of coffee!
I completely agree. I am an “evening person” and every day I find myself wishing I had been more productive that day by getting up a little bit earlier. If memory serves, I believe Jesus was also a morning person…
x 2
(And a morning person.)
Fully DISagree! Ps. 127:2 refutes this and Ps.127:1 gives a clue to PROactivity in the real sense! 🙂 Did you ever try to change from being the night person to the early bird? It’s almost impossible. And if the research would be any true, it would doom lots of people into losers? Unless the Lord builds the house who cares how early did you spring up!?
My question is. What would the study have shown had they asked different questions… I believe the saying goes… Change your questions, change your answers.
I think I saw something with Penn and Teller about this…
Sorry, I can’t respond right now. I’m busy doing something that I started at the crack of dawn. :0!
I never thought of it that way … but you’re right Daniel! Jesus WAS a morning person! Hallelujah and seven amens. I’m a morning person too and if I had a nickel for every time someone said, “what’s wrong with you anyways?”, I be rich. I’ve been vindicated.