I've always been a morning person. I wake up full of energy. It's always when I've felt most productive.
When I'm pushing on a project, or up against a deadline, my approach has always been to hop on early and dig in.
Over the last few years, that has seemed to change. I don't know if it's the new weird ways we're working (thanks AI) or just a perk of aging, but I don't have my best ideas in the morning anymore.
I still have energy, but that has backfired. Instead of getting into the flow, I have frenetically made lists, checked slacks & emails, and generally tried to hard.
It's a lesson in having strongly baked stories about ourselves. Instead of shifting how I worked, I kept trying the old way because "I'm a morning person".
Recently, I've shifted my days. I don't force work in the morning. I let myself do more menial, consistent, and important work in the mornings but at a slower pace.
In the late afternoon and evenings, I get ideas, sparks, and a surge of motivation. I've started leaning into this new well of energy and writing detailed briefs (on paper, see Foundations and Frontiers (opens in a new tab)) that I can hand off or action on later.