I also think that whether you are a lark or a night owl will determine whether you can succeed in certain jobs. I naturally get out of bed after 9am—this is recalcitrant in the face of extensive efforts to get up earlier. The evidence suggests that lark/owl is ~20-50% heritable, and that people are fairly evenly distributed across the lark/owl range. In a large sample:
“Approximately, 27% identified as definite morning types, 35% as moderate morning types, 28% as moderate evening types and 9% as definite evening types.”
I don’t think I or other hard owls could hack it in a finance job where I had to be in the office at 8am, and so get out of bed at 630am. I think owls probably thrive best in jobs that have flexible hours. I think 80k should potentially take this into account when giving job advice. (I owe this observation to Bastian Stern). According to the above study, owls have a 10% higher mortality risk than larks, which is plausibly due to working hours that aren’t in line with people’s natural circadian rhythms.
Agreed. In Why We Sleep, there is also discussion about the lark-night owl -spectrum. The author even suggests that currently society is actively discriminating against night owls because office hours 8-16 are assumed almost everywhere, and thus the population of night owls have poorer health and productivity than other groups.
Yes I’ve heard good things about this book.
I also think that whether you are a lark or a night owl will determine whether you can succeed in certain jobs. I naturally get out of bed after 9am—this is recalcitrant in the face of extensive efforts to get up earlier. The evidence suggests that lark/owl is ~20-50% heritable, and that people are fairly evenly distributed across the lark/owl range. In a large sample:
“Approximately, 27% identified as definite morning types, 35% as moderate morning types, 28% as moderate evening types and 9% as definite evening types.”
I don’t think I or other hard owls could hack it in a finance job where I had to be in the office at 8am, and so get out of bed at 630am. I think owls probably thrive best in jobs that have flexible hours. I think 80k should potentially take this into account when giving job advice. (I owe this observation to Bastian Stern). According to the above study, owls have a 10% higher mortality risk than larks, which is plausibly due to working hours that aren’t in line with people’s natural circadian rhythms.
Agreed. In Why We Sleep, there is also discussion about the lark-night owl -spectrum. The author even suggests that currently society is actively discriminating against night owls because office hours 8-16 are assumed almost everywhere, and thus the population of night owls have poorer health and productivity than other groups.