You know in your heart when you feel the most productive. There are certain hours of the day when you feel like you can take care of a lot more than you can at other times. It is known as prime biological time, whenever that time is for you. Those are your hours to make a dent in the work you need to do, and those are when you can accomplish the most.
What is prime biological time?
Countless biological factors contribute to how we react to different times of the day. Some people are much better at getting things done in the morning. They arise out of bed and know they must take on certain challenges immediately.
Other people cannot be bothered to stir from bed until much later in the day. Knowing which type of person you are is a great way to start to make some progress on your goals.
Energy levels move up and down throughout the day depending on numerous factors that can impact our modes and our ability to get things done. A few of those factors include:
- How much sleep do you get the night before
- What have you eaten today (if anything)
- Water consumption levels
These and countless other factors will directly contribute to how you feel about getting things done at certain times. Some people are more naturally predisposed to feeling great and getting a lot done in the morning, but that doesn’t mean everyone will. Some of us feel like this in the morning:
So be it if you discover that you can accomplish more at night. You need to capitalize on the knowledge you have picked up about yourself and try to use it to have greater success and productivity moving forward.
You can do all of this, but you need to be prepared to recognize in yourself when you are most productive.
Why is it important to know your prime biological time?
Not much you can get done effectively until you know your prime biological time. If you are always working at times that are not ideal for you as a person, then you will likely end up with sub-par results in your work, and that is not the place you want to put yourself in.
Instead, it would be best if you did the work of figuring out when you can best function. You can perhaps reorient your entire life around this factor.
This thinking might be extremely helpful for someone with a busy schedule, such as a student-athlete. They are attempting to juggle their studies and their commitments to their athletic program at the same time. The fact that they have to do both is certainly challenging, but it doesn’t mean they can’t handle it.
On the contrary, they can get it done if they know more about their prime biological time and use that time of day to maximize what they can accomplish.
Maybe they need to wake up extremely early and work out, or perhaps they need to wait until late at night to get their studies done. Whatever the case may be, knowing what their prime biological time is matters greatly.
How to find your own biological prime time?
If you would like to discover when your own biological prime time is, you will need to do a little experiment on yourself. It will require that you have patience and the ability to keep good records of yourself.
If either of those things is challenging for you, then you will need to spend some extra time preparing to get this before you can figure out what your prime biological time is.
Here is what you need to do.
Measure your productivity levels throughout the day on an hour-by-hour basis. Note times when you feel refreshed and ready to go and also times when you are not feeling like yourself. It would be best if you recorded these logs for about three weeks to get a reliable sample size for yourself.
If you do this, you will see how your productivity levels move during certain times. You should be able to identify the times when your productivity levels are the highest and also note times when they are not where you would like them to be.
The data will tell the real story about your productivity levels and where you would like them to go. You may have an idea of when you are most productive, but the data is the only way that you can tell if this is true or not.
You deserve to know and want to capitalize on your most productive times so you aren’t missing any of the best opportunities to get things done.
The harder you work towards your goals of getting things done and impacting your productivity, the better you will feel and the more you accomplish.
Keep tracking your data for as long as you feel it is necessary. If you are surprised by the results after three weeks, perhaps keep logging your data to see if there were any flukes in the original data.
You may have recorded incorrect information and need to change it so you can discover when your real biological prime time is.
On the other hand, perhaps the data is all correct, and you are just surprised that it told a story you were not expecting.
Either way, you can always monitor the data for as long as you would like until you are more confident that the story you are receiving about it is correct.
3 Tips on how to make the most of your prime biological time
Once you have discovered your prime biological time, you will want to capitalize on it. Here are some tips that can help you to do just that.
1. Set Aside Your Biological Prime Time Hours, So You Are Always Free To Use Them
You may need to set up a virtual fence around your time once you have discovered your biological prime time hours. This is to say that you may need to let loved ones in your life know that you intend to use your prime hours to get things done and that you will need to get back in touch with them at a later time.
Once people get used to you doing this for a while, they will start to understand a little more than they need to stay away during certain times of the day because you will be too busy with the work you are trying to accomplish.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with letting people know that there are certain times of the day when you need to be allowed to concentrate on your work. It is a sign of good emotional intelligence to be able to tell people when you need to get things done.
2. Focus On One Task At A Time
Utilizing your most productive hours is wonderful, but only if you truly use that time to focus on one task at a time. Trying to take on too much at once is a sure recipe for disaster, and you don’t want to deal with that.
Instead, keep an eye on how you use your time and what you can do to be more efficient. You may want to cut out some of the extra tasks you would normally do and focus all that raw energy on one thing at a time.
“Busyness is no different from laziness when it doesn’t lead you to accomplish anything.” – Chris Bailey
3. Use This Time To Knock Out Your Hardest Tasks
Try to knock out the hardest tasks you can during your prime hours. You do not want to be left to deal with these tasks when you are off prime hours and not at your peak performance.
Therefore, it is up to you to ensure your hardest tasks get the attention they need. You can get them all done, but you must concentrate on making it happen.
One of the positive effects that you will feel from knowing when your prime biological time is includes getting the challenging tasks knocked out right away.
Conclusion
We are all set up with prime-time biological clocks within us. Discovering yours can net you some pretty incredible results as far as your productivity is concerned. Perhaps you ought to try this for yourself at your next opportunity. Ensure you don’t miss the chance to capitalize on your best work times throughout the day.
