The Hours You're Wasting Without Knowing It

For years I scheduled media appearances and interviews first thing in the morning.

Made sense at the time -- that's when TV shows air, that's when people are available, that's when the world expects you to be "on." Green rooms at 6am, makeup chairs by 6:30, camera-ready by 7. I did this for a decade without questioning it.

What I didn't realize until embarrassingly late in my career was I was burning my best mental hours on things that didn't require my best. Interviews I could've done half-asleep. Administrative calls w/ agents and sponsors that could've happened at any other time of day. I was good at being "on" and that made it feel productive, but the work that actually won medals -- studying competitors, visualizing races, the deep mental preparation that separated a podium finish from fourth place -- got pushed to the afternoon. When I was tired. When my brain felt like it was running through mud & everything took twice as long.

I was fighting my own biology and I had no idea.

I think about all those mornings in green rooms at the Olympic Training Center or in some hotel in a city I don't remember, getting ready for a TV segment while my brain was primed & ready for the deep cognitive work that actually mattered. All those sharp morning hours burned on stuff I could've phoned in at 3pm.

The waste of it makes me a little sick when I add it up across a decade.

When is your brain actually sharpest?

Everyone has a window. A specific stretch of the day when your brain just works better -- not bc you're trying harder or wanting it more, but bc that's how you're wired. Some people wake up sharp at 5am without an alarm. Others come alive at 9pm. Most of us are somewhere in between and we've never figured out where.

During that window, focus comes naturally instead of being forced. Problems feel solvable. Ideas connect in ways they don't at other times.

Outside that window? You're swimming upstream against your own nervous system. Simple things feel hard, complex things feel impossible, and you chalk it up to not being disciplined enough when the real issue is you're asking your brain to do its hardest job during its weakest hours.

The expensive mistake almost everyone makes is giving their peak hours to whatever screams loudest. Email in the morning bc the inbox is full. Meetings at 10 bc that's when the calendar says. Slack all day bc the notification is there & it feels productive to respond. Then the deep work -- the stuff that moves careers and companies forward -- gets shoved into whatever time is left over.

We do our hardest work when our brain is least equipped for it. And we've been doing it so long we think that's just how hard work feels.

My peak window is morning. Roughly 7am to 11am, give or take depending on sleep & travel. That's when my brain is cleanest -- when I can sit w/ something complex and think about it instead of just reacting to it.

So that window is protected now. Deep work happens first. Writing, strategic thinking, preparation for keynotes, the stuff that requires me to be fully present. Everything else fits around it.

Media, calls, emails, logistics -- all pushed to afternoon when I can still do it well but don't need to be at my cognitive best. The same keynote prep that used to take three grinding afternoon hours now takes 90 minutes in the morning and the result is better.

I'm not working more hours. I'm working the right hours.

If you want to figure out yours, the simplest test I know: if you had no alarms, no caffeine, no obligations for two weeks straight, when would you naturally wake up? When during the day would you feel most clear without anything propping you up?

That's your window. And I'd bet you're currently filling it w/ stuff that doesn't deserve it.

I sat in those green rooms for a decade before I figured this out. Hopefully that saves you some time.

I write about this every week in Hard Pivot -- the real mechanics of performance, not the motivational poster version.

--AAO