Chronotype

What It Means

A chronotype is the timing your body prefers for sleep and for being awake and active. Researchers usually sort people into morning types (early to bed, early to rise), evening types (later bedtimes and later mornings) and an intermediate group in between. In evening types, the body's daily clock runs later in the day than it does in morning types. Genes play a part in which type you are.

How People Say It

• "Don't talk to me before nine, I'm a night owl."
• "I'm useless after 8 pm, total early bird."
• "Book the meeting after lunch, my brain isn't on yet."

The Breakdown

How to plan around your chronotype

1. Watch a stretch of days off, such as a vacation week, and note when you fall asleep and wake up without an alarm. That timing says more about your type than a workday does.
2. Mark the two or three hours when your head feels clearest.
3. Put the task that needs the most thought into that window, and block it on your calendar.
4. Move email, errands and routine jobs into the hours when you feel flat.
5. Check after two weeks and adjust the window if the work went better at another time.

Steps 2 to 5 are Buhata's own suggestion. Research compares how morning and evening types do at different times of day, but it sets no schedule for you.

Try it today. Take the self-check above, then move one demanding task tomorrow into the time of day it points to.

Good to Know

Your chronotype sits on top of your circadian rhythmCircadian rhythmThe body's roughly 24-hour cycle of physical, mental and behavioral changes, such as sleepiness at night, kept in time by a clock in the brain that follows light. See more, the roughly 24-hour body clock covered on its own page. For how many hours of sleep adults need, see the sleep hygieneSleep hygieneThe everyday habits and bedroom setup that make it easier to fall asleep and stay asleep, like a steady wake-up time and a quiet, cool room. See more page, which covers CDC's advice. If your natural sleep times clash so badly with work or school that you can't get enough sleep, or you're very sleepy during the day, talk to a doctor or a sleep specialist.

Related Terms and Categories

• Circadian rhythm

  The body's roughly 24-hour cycle of physical, mental and behavioral changes, such as sleepiness at night, kept in time by a clock in the brain that follows light.

• Sleep schedule

  The set times a person goes to bed and gets up each day, planned so they get the hours of sleep recommended for their age.

• Ultradian rhythm

  A body rhythm that repeats more than once a day, such as the roughly 90-minute cycle of sleep stages, shorter than the 24-hour circadian cycle.

• Sleep hygiene

  The everyday habits and bedroom setup that make it easier to fall asleep and stay asleep, like a steady wake-up time and a quiet, cool room.

Productivity methods and focus