Working hours being at 9am-5pm is not optimal for plenty of people. Working remotely has never worked for me, but a flexible work schedule time and the option to work from home occasionally is a really good strategy for companies. I always stay up late and there are many brain studies showing that people very often fall into two categories, early risers and late risers. Accommodating both is a good idea to get the most from your workforce.
9-5 isn't optimal for many people, but as someone who does prefer a 9-5 (ideally a 10-6), it can be frustrating when you roll into the office, see an email sent from a colleague at 3am, and have to wait until 1pm or 2pm to ask any clarifying questions. Or on the flip side, when 6pm comes around and you're ready to leave, that same colleague is just settling into the most productive part of the day and wants to debug something with you. Worse still are the times when it's 10pm and you're getting ready for bed, only to find that your colleague has a few 'quick questions' over email.
In my experience flexible work hours are okay when your work is silo-ed off from the rest of the team, or if you are diligent about making sure other people can pick up the ball once you're done. When either of those things are not true it just becomes a headache for everyone.
Yea I've worked for a long time with people in asia (I'm in US), and basically I send emails to them around 4pm my time so that they get the email when they get in in the morning, then I expect to need to answer them up until around 9pm. So for me a 10:30am to 7pm schedule works pretty well. So yea, I think being part of a team means you need to figure out how to optimize your schedule for the team to be most successful, and for your life. I've worked with people who are kind of ridiculous.. they do "4-10s", and get into work at like 4am.. basically they work 4 days per week and are there essentially overlapping with people for like 2 hours. So its one of those kind of things where I'm like, who approved that arrangement??? so I guess flexible I mean as like, "you can get into work anytime between 7am and 10am, but expect to be here 9 hours and take a 1 hour lunch break..".. I feel like that is a pretty flexible for many people, and you could say "if you need to leave early to go get your kids on some random day or do something, just do it, but figure out how to make sure you are being productive.." so there is basically a rule that people need to follow, but also some level of flexibility.
I'm a night owl. I've forced myself into becoming an early riser just to mitigate the 45-1hr of traffic and get to the gym. I don't feel like it's helped my productivity whatsoever, though. It's like no matter what, I get a complete boost in productivity as soon as the sun goes down.
I have switched to waking up 4 or 5 almost every day. I have stuck to that habit for the last about 20 months.
It seems I get a boost from a) being alone and knowing I won't be interrupted for hours and b) just start the day by doing something that other people find crazy.
Interestingly it seems that if I sleep past 5 it becomes harder to wake up. That might just be me giving up once I realize won't get ut of the house in time though.
Oh, and for the record: I use an alarm clock that forces me to go out of bed to scan a code. I have also set it up to turn on the philips hue spot that points at my face gradually starting 30 minutes or so before alarm time.
I get up as soon as I have to use the bathroom in the morning. I just don't go back to bed, whether it's 3am or 6am. I noticed a year ago that I'd be able to power through the day if I did that, but if I went back to bed for the 1-3 hours left over before work I'd wake up feeling worse.
Aside from all of this, though, my point was more that I don't feel more productive. Probably less. I still feel like the night time when things are quiet and peaceful is when my brain can actually function at it's best.
Maybe I am wrong but I really don't like the forced to wake up idea. I spent most of my pre-adult life very tired and it may have been partly due to interrupted REM cycles in the morning.
For the past few years I've been starting earlier, from 6:30-8:00am. Once I'm awake I'm excited to get out of bed and work. I get to check up on what was completed or happened while I was asleep.
Jump back to 5 or even 10 years ago and I would sleep late, anywhere from 10am to 1pm. Getting up wasn't exciting or motivating.
A whole lot went in to this (light control at night being probably the biggest factor), but an alarm clock never played a role.
