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April 04, 2011

Being A Night Owl In The Corporate World

As you might realize, this blog is being written sometime around 3:00AM Pacific Time... for my friends on the East Coast, you might be awaking (hopefully to some delicious medium roast blend, as I will be in a few short hours) to start your work week. It is at this time that I am thinking about my rate of productivity, and the studies I've read about learning styles.

For quite some time, I wanted to be a school teacher, and spend a lot of time studying learning styles - the way a each child understands new concepts, learns material, and can reproduce that knowledge is not cookie cutter. Common science tells us that there are three processing types: kinetic, visual and auditory. This is somewhat standard classroom knowledge today, and I've found that teachers today do a great job of incorporating all of these aspects into their lessons to give their students the best chance to understand what they are learning. However, there are also learning environment conditions that effect the capability of students to focus and understand the lesson, like room temperature (warm vs. cold), noise level (background noise vs. silence) and seating arrangements (comfort vs. structure, like sitting at a desk vs. in a bean-bag chair).

As a child, I was fortunate enough to have a mother who understood that everyone has a distinct combination of these learning styles that best allow them to focus when studying, doing homework, or being intellectually productive. For me, my ideal creative learning space involves sitting on my bed wrapped under my covers with my laptop, a large hot cup of coffee, some music streaming from Pandora, and watching a lecture while taking copious notes, writing emails (or blogs) or just getting work done. 

I want to be warm, comfortable, have background noise (hence my absolute love of coffee shops) and learn best by doing (kinetic learning). If I can use it, I can understand it, and if I'm warm and comfortable, I can focus on what I'm doing and be intellectually productive. My mom, on the other hand, needs a chilled room, desk, and absolute silence to do her best studying.

This brings me to my most recent self-study: time of day. When I work for myself, I consistently find myself awake at 3AM (no, it's not just because I love coffee and probably drank some a little bit too late in the evening!). At 3AM, and often until 5AM, not only am I wide awake, but my creative juices are pumping through my brain at white-water-rapid-like speeds. I keep a notebook and light inches away from my bed to document all of the ideas I have throughout the nights where I do head in early by force, having to get up for a 7AM meeting.

Here is the question I'd like to pose to the public: Would companies in Corporate America be better off letting employees work in their ideal work conditions (like from 9PM-5AM, instead of 9AM to 5PM), in order to allow their natural ability to be productive go to work?

Many Silicon Valley companies, take Google for example, have recognized the importance of giving employees exactly what they need to excel at their work - a larger flexibility of hours, comfort, and the ability to put your best learning style forward. Google is a campus - much like a college - where employees can eat, do their laundry, bring their dog, work flexible hours and in comfortable/casual clothes, ride their bike, and practically live. It is ranked as one of the best places to work - and the happiness of the average employee there, I believe, is largely based on their individual needs being recognized and fulfilled.

So I'd like to know... why aren't more companies embracing this knowledge of employee potential productivity? At this point, I have to force myself to get some rest, because I have a job that requires me to be awake in just a few hours. Once again, I praise the ever consistent coffee machine that I know will wake me up and keep me flourishing through the day...and perhaps I will wake up soon with a brilliant idea on how to bring this knowledge to light for more companies so that people can be truly happy with their work.

Is this the answer to Having Your Cake and Eating it Too: The Job Search Version?

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