Photo source: Ivan Oboleninov from Pexels

How many of you were ecstatic to welcome the new year? 2020 was indeed not an easy year, in which every one of us has been affected by a sudden pandemic, both personally and professionally. The new year then becomes a moment that leads us to pledge to a fresh set of resolutions (again). 

Nevertheless, those long-list resolutions will end up a waste of paper and pen if we don’t put them into action and still spend time needlessly. If you want to be more productive but are still struggling to organise the day wisely, this article might be for you as it will help to identify sleep types a.k.a chronotype. Yes, you heard it right! It all starts with a good sleep. 

Chronotype is a person’s circadian typology or the individual differences in activity and alertness in the morning and evening. In short, it’s our internal clock. It influences body temperature, blood pressure, energy, and creativity. Knowing this will help us to identify the “jam pintar” (uptime) and “jam bego” (downtime)--a phrase that is introduced by Fellexandro in his You Do You book--and better map when to do our main daily activities, such as eating, working, exercising, and socializing.

According to a psychologist and sleep doctor Michael Breus, chronotype is broken down into four categories such as “dolphins”, “lions”, “bears”, and “wolves”. In his research, he found a case where the productivity of one patient increased when the patient was allowed to start working later than the usual office working hour. It turned out that the patient had not been getting enough sleep as the chronotype was wolves (evening person), making it difficult to follow the nine to five schedule. All of those findings and research was later written in his book, The Power of When. 

Check out the explanation of each chronotype below: 

You can find out more about chronotype by taking a quiz here. 

Now you know when your uptime and downtime is. The next step is probably to start scheduling the time to work on the difficult stuff, study, and brainstorm during the peak time where we have the maximum level of energy, bandwidth, and creativity. While the rest of the day can be used for activities such as sending emails, meeting, and socializing. Also, remember to rest and have a margin for the unexpected. We are still humans after all. 

Please take the result test responsibly. At the end, our chronotype is expected to help us to be more self-aware, strategic, and improve our daily planning. All point out to the same goal: to excel in everything we’re in whether it’s the workplace, family, or for the sake of achieving our personal goals. 

If you have other practical tips or routine which can help to boost productivity, please let me know by commenting on the section below.