I pretend to be a night owl so I can have interesting conversations
I am a morning person. No matter what time I go to bed at night, I wake up before 6am. I don't plan it. It just is the way my body wants to work.
It turns out that being a morning person is a lucky life hack: in theory, morning people are likely to be happier and healthier. I don't know how the science on that will bear out over time, but there's no doubt that it's an advantage to have your best energy just as your work or school day is starting.
But there's one big way that I've always felt at a disadvantage as a morning person working in tech. Long before the endless workday became a thing, the most interesting and strategic digital conversations have mostly happened after my natural bedtime.
It's tough out here for a morning person
You know the pattern. It's 10:09pm, and you've popped online to glance at email one last time and check your calendar for the next morning before going to bed. Just as you're about to sign out, a 1,200-word message arrives from your skip level. Now that everyone's kids are in bed and meetings are done, she finally has time to share her thoughts on your recent proposal.
Okay, you think. I'm tired, but she's online. If I reply right now, I'll catch her in real time. If I wait until tomorrow, I might wait another week for a conversation.
As you're thinking about the right response, another notification comes in. Your most opinionated peer has replied-all to the thread. He has said something both provocative and misleading. Uh oh! You are speed-typing a clarification when you notice that your skip level has replied again.
Now it's on. If you go to bed now, you will wake up in the morning to 20 new messages on the thread. Untangling the misunderstandings will take the rest of your week.
The early bird may get the worm, but the night owl gets the influence. Maybe worms are overrated?
The anecdata gets real
Over the years, I've stayed up late to have opportunistic-but-critical work conversations too many times to count. After hours is when you're most likely to get real-time conversations with busy people that you might otherwise wait a long time to have in person.
Now that I'm working in a heavy email culture again, I analyzed my last three months of mail to understand three things:
- When the most messages arrive
- When the longest messages arrive
- Whether the above varies by role or seniority
The tl;dr: The anecdata is real. Your boss really is sending you longer messages at night.
The meatiest conversations happen after hours
To level set, let's look at the distribution of when my email arrives, taking an average across the last three months:
I work with people in several time zones, but the majority are on the US West Coast. No surprise, I get most of my mail during regular working hours Pacific Time.
But when I look at the length of messages received at different times of day, the picture changes. As my day goes on, people send me longer messages. Look at the total word count across all those emails breaks down:
People write the shortest messages before work, and the longest messages at night.
So far, this matches my initial sense that people don't get around to more substantial messaging tasks until they've wrapped up their core working hours. When we just look at messages from executives, the night-time word count only increases!
My theory: The more senior someone is, the more likely they are to spend their core working hours in meetings. If they have kids, they may log off at dinner time and get back online after the kids go to bed. That's when they have time to send these longer messages.
The bottom line: Advantage, night owls. It sure looks like we're all staying up late to talk to you.
Kieran
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