Alert and focused: Why and how to plan “deep work” based on your chronotype

As Paul Graham stated in his classic essay on maker and managers, knowledge work generally comes in two categories: focused work and collaborative work.

Focused work includes creating concepts and plans, writing reports, performing complex analysis, programming, and other “maker” tasks. Collaborative work includes attending meetings, answering e-mails, leading co-workers, using group chat, and other “manager” tasks. 

Most modern organizations facilitate collaborative work at the expense of focused, or “deep” work. Yet, according to The Economist, “[…] the biggest problem with collaboration is that it makes [...] ‘deep work’ difficult, if not impossible. Deep work is the killer app of the knowledge economy: it is only by concentrating intensely that you can master a difficult discipline or solve a demanding problem.”

As a result, we should prioritize focused over collaborative work when planning our workday. This is easier than you might think. Research shows that our capacity to focus deeply wears out after a total of only about 3 hours a day. Thus, including just one or two bouts of focused work – which should last between 60 and 90 minutes – makes a huge difference. And even for very busy knowledge workers, it leaves plenty of time for all the important collaborative work.

As focused work requires higher levels of alertness than collaborative work, your chronotype matters when planning your focused bout(s). Morning larks and intermediate third birds, who are most alert during the morning and wear out by the afternoon, should schedule at least one bout of focused work early in the day – before engaging in collaborative work. Evening owls, who are sluggish in the morning and alert in the afternoon, should make sure to block some hours for focused work late in the workday.