Imagine if your workday was perfectly synchronized with your body’s natural rhythms, maximizing your productivity and helping you get better sleep. You wouldn’t have to try to get a jump on things too early in the day or power through an afternoon slump. And you’d accomplish the most pressing tasks on your to-do list at the point in the day when you’re most alert, engaged, and focused.
That’s the promise of chronoworking. This new workplace trend involves aligning your workday schedules with your sleep chronotype. Experts say it could potentially optimize both your performance and your downtime.
Here’s what you should know about the benefits of chronoworking and how to begin embracing it during your workday.
What is chronoworking?
Coined by journalist Ellen Scott in her workplace culture newsletter in early 2024, chronoworking is a workplace concept in which workers align their tasks and schedules with their body clocks and sleep chronotypes. A conventional 9-to-5 schedule requires all workers to start and end the day at the same time, but chronoworking takes into account the personal differences between each worker and allows them to adjust their schedules based on their body’s natural dips and rises in energy.
Early risers, for instance, might start work at 7:30 a.m. and take on their most demanding tasks first thing in the morning, whereas night owls might have a late-morning start time and wait until dinnertime to make serious progress on their to-do list.
While the term is new, the concept has been part of productivity hacks that people have experimented with for a while, says Julia Kogan, a health psychologist who provides coaching for improved performance, sleep, and nervous system regulation.
“Chronoworking is a fancier new word for it, but we’ve been talking about deep work and shallow work from a productivity and neuroscience standpoint for a long time. It’s basically arranging the day around when you’re most focused and productive,” she notes.
Kogan continues: “Chronoworking takes it one step further to change your work schedule around, whereas before, we talked about optimizing the structure within your predetermined workday.”
Is chronoworking on the rise?
Chronoworking is one of the hottest topics in workplace trends and has been a buzzed-about trend. According to corporate wellness consultant Tawn Williams in an interview with Forbes, it’s become especially popular among self-employed workers and solopreneurs who have a high degree of control over their schedules.
But so far, few employers have adopted formal chronoworking policies that explicitly grant their workers the ability to align their workday to their sleep preferences. Some may provide a level of flexibility as part of a workplace benefits package, inclusivity initiatives, and accommodations for disabilities, but that’s often on a case-by-case basis. Most still require their staff to stick to a fairly standardized schedule, which helps with scheduling meetings and building in-office camaraderie.
“Chronoworking is not currently available for the majority of workers; it’s more like an accommodation,” explains Shavon Terrell-Camper, a licensed therapist who has helped clients overcome burnout and sleep issues, and has partnered with major employers, including Amazon, AT&T, Toyota, and Uber.
Now that there’s a trendy word for the concept, though, employers may take chronoworking more seriously as a workplace initiative in the near future. And workers have already begun expressing a desire to move in this direction. According to a recent survey of more than 1,700 working professionals in Canada, a whopping 87% said they would like their employer to run a chronoworking trial.
Some traditionally employed workers have even quietly begun adjusting their workday to their energy levels, even if their employer hasn’t approved the concept.
“Some people, mainly those who work from home, are silently doing it,” says Terrell-Camper. “They write emails late at night and automate them to be sent in the morning when they’re actually asleep, or block off their calendar during hours when they’re low energy.”
Benefits of chronoworking
Experts say chronoworking could offer real well-being benefits to workers.
“Being able to adjust your work schedule around when you’re most productive and energetic allows for the best performance and helps you feel better in general,” Kogan says. “If you can be up and moving and thinking at times when it’s most ideal for your body, it can help with productivity, mood, and a sense of accomplishment.”
It could also help workers keep a more regular sleep schedule. Since they would already have their workdays aligned with their sleep chronotype, they wouldn’t necessarily have big swings in sleep and wake-up time on the weekends, known as social jetlag. It may help them avoid the health problems associated with inconsistent sleep schedules, which include a higher risk of heart disease and mortality, metabolic issues, depression, and even bad moods.
“Our circadian rhythm is based on our day-to-day behaviors, and the more regular they are, the better we sleep and the better we function,” says Kogan.
Overcoming the challenges of asynchronous work and embracing chronoworking may offer benefits to employers, too, if allowing employees to set their own schedules improves productivity and performance. Another potential benefit of chronoworking is a reduction of conflict in the workplace, adds Terrell-Camper.
“A lot of conflict comes from misunderstanding, and when we’re in a grumpier state because we didn’t sleep well or woke up earlier than our body wanted to, we’re more likely to perceive things negatively,” she says. “But if we’re in a better mood, we’re more likely to give our coworkers the benefit of the doubt. Conflict and tension can decrease in the workplace, and more work gets done.”
How to start chronoworking
The first step to adopting chronoworking is figuring out your sleep chronotype, i.e., your body’s natural tendency to sleep and wake at certain times.
Night owls (people who tend to gain energy throughout the day and hit the hay late at night) and early birds (those who wake up early with a big dose of energy that wanes throughout the day) are the best-known sleep chronotypes.
Many people fall somewhere in the middle of the two, though. This guide to sleep chronotypes can help you understand the different sleep-wake patterns and figure out your natural tendencies.
Once you know your sleep chronotype, you can begin to practice chronoworking in your workday. On a basic level, that means waking up at a time that feels best for you and wrapping up work several hours before your ideal bedtime to give your body time to wind down.
But that’s one aspect of chronoworking, and even if you don’t have control over when you start and end work, you can still make adjustments to your day to align with your energy levels. Chronoworking involves working on your most challenging projects (like writing a big report) when your energy peaks.
“Save the tasks that will pull the most brain power from you to the times when you’re at your highest level of energy. That’s usually when you can focus really well, and that time differs for everyone,” suggests Terrell-Camper.
Low-energy periods are a great time for less intensive tasks, like catching up on email, reading your company’s newsletter, filling out required forms, or planning a meeting agenda.
“Block out time for deep work, and having availability for meetings and other tasks that require less brain power at other times in the day can be really helpful,” Kogan says.
You could also use email scheduling tools that allow you to write messages at a time that’s best for you (even if that’s 10 p.m.) and send them at a time that won’t disturb your colleagues during their downtime.
The beauty of these chronoworking hacks is that you may be able to implement positive changes to your workday that take advantage of your natural flow of energy and sleep-wake patterns despite your boss’s insistence on keeping a rigid schedule.
“In general, it’s important to look at the big picture of things, especially with chronotypes. They just mean we’re a bit more predisposed to certain sleep and wake times, but we can have some flexibility,” says Kogan.
It’s far more important that your sleep schedule is consistent rather than perfectly matched to your chronotype. Waking up and going to sleep at the same time every day can support your health and give you the energy you need to take on the day.
And with some chronoworking techniques, you can make a game plan for your to-do list that aligns with your natural energy peaks rather than clashes with them. When you start listening to your body’s rhythms and make your energy work for you, you’ll find a new level of productivity during the day and enjoy more restful slumber at night.
