Work with Your Chronotype Instead of Against It
Adopting a better chronotype model, while the fundamentals of working with your natural rhythm rather than fighting it remain unchanged
Ever wonder why forcing yourself to be productive during certain hours feels like swimming upstream? Or why some people bounce out of bed at 5am while others only hit their stride after sunset?
The answer lies in your chronotype — your body’s natural preference for when to sleep, eat, exercise, and do focused work. Understanding and working with your chronotype can be the difference between constant struggle and natural flow in your daily rhythm.
I’ve been designing productivity systems around these natural rhythms since 2008. Rather than fixating on traditional time management, I’ve always emphasized energy management — understanding that when you do something often matters more than how long you spend on it. This principle appears throughout my work on time blocking, weekly schedule design, and heat mapping.
My shorthand for chronotypes that wound up in Start Finishing in 2019 was simple:
Larks = early risers who shine in the morning
Owls = late-night thinkers who warm up slowly
Emus = folks who hit their stride in the late morning to mid-afternoon
This was based on the well-worn “early bird” and “night owl” meme that exists in our culture.
After I published Start Finishing, I stumbled across Dr. Michael Breus’s The Power of When, which offers four animal-based chronotypes based on biological rhythms and hormonal patterns. I’ve been using his framework in my advising, workshops, and keynotes since I found out about it, as it’s much better than the three-bird shorthand I was using.
It’s high time that I publish a post on it, too, as awkward as it may be to have the bird-based framework in published work I can’t update.
The Four Chronotypes
Each type is tied to a distinct pattern of energy, focus, and sleep, and includes a rough estimate of how common it is:
Lion (~15%) - Lions wake early and are most productive in the morning. They tend to tire out in the evening, often going to bed earlier than most. Excel at deep morning focus, early decision-making, and solo work.
Bear (~50%) - Bears track with the sun: alert mid-morning to early afternoon, lower energy before and after. This is the most common chronotype. Excel at collaborative team work, social problem-solving, and reliable execution during standard work hours.
Wolf (~15–20%) - Wolves are natural night owls. They struggle with early mornings and tend to hit their cognitive stride later in the day. Excel at creative thinking, long-focus sessions in the afternoon or evening, and unconventional workflows.
Dolphin (~10%) - Dolphins are light sleepers with erratic energy. They’re sharp, analytical, and often anxious or overstimulated. Their productivity often comes in waves. Excel at high-detail editing, pattern spotting, and bursts of focused problem solving.
Here’s how Breus’s chronotypes map onto mine:
Calling out Dolphins is especially helpful for people who’ve never felt like they fit anywhere. They may get mistaken for underperformers in standard settings, but they often just need more flexibility and space for nonlinear work.
Why This Matters for Your Life and Work
Breus’s research tracks my own that about 50% of the population are Bears. It makes sense that our society is built around the Bear schedule.
What doesn’t make sense is how much productivity advice amounts to trying to get people to become Lions. It turns out that a lot of high achievers skew toward being Lions — and thus, people who often teach and advise about effectiveness are Lions — but I think the focus on Lions is a case of accidental correlation, socialization, and our agricultural background.
In any event, the majority of people who try to change their chronotype to be Lions fail. They can’t sustainably play a Lion’s game and they’re not playing their own.
Speaking of playing your own game, if you’re a Wolf, you might like this podcast episode with Mike Vardy. Mike’s a long-time friend and collaborator who’s my go-to for Wolf productivity.
Applying Your Chronotype to Your Schedule
The power of chronotypes is that they give language to your unique energy cycles throughout the day. Rather than fighting your natural rhythms or trying to become something you're not, you can lean into what actually works for you.
The key principle is simple: align your most important work with your natural peaks, and schedule lower-energy tasks during your valleys. Focus blocks remain the limiting factor for your progress on meaningful projects, but their optimal timing varies dramatically by chronotype.
(This is especially easy if you’re already using our Momentum Planners or have read this post on heat mapping.)
I also discussed chronotypes in Team Habits, but here’s a quick nudge for people leading teams:
Don’t default to 8 a.m. or early morning meetings just because you’re a Lion. You’re probably the outlier.
Consider how your team’s mix of Wolves and Bears shapes engagement windows.
Protect Dolphins from burnout by giving them autonomy and async space.
Not sure which chronotype your teammates are? Ask them! (Sending them this link may help.)
And if it feels like chronotypes and time blocking are great for creatives and entrepreneurs, but not for folks with corporate jobs, you might like How to Apply Time Blocking in a Corporate Setting.
A Practice to Try This Week
Most people I’ve explained Breus’s chronotype model to have a good enough idea of which type they are to start applying it. They often immediately want to overhaul their whole schedule RIGHT NOW because it’s an epiphany for them.
If that’s something you can do, go for it. The Weekly Block Blueprint may be an especially good tool to use for this.
Most people are better served with trying a smaller change first, though.
The practice: shift a morning, afternoon, or evening period of one of the next few days to be a better fit for your chronotype.
Some suggestions, based on chronotypes:
Lions - if you’ve already cleared your mornings, great. Keep doing that. It’s the afternoons you’ll need to shift, likely to focus on recovery earlier than you want it to.
Bears - play with shifting your focus and social blocks back 90-120 minutes. For many Bears, there’s not an actual work shift — what shifts is their expectation that they should be on it and focused when in reality, they’re still just warming up and grazing for the day.
Wolves - Invert the standard productivity advice and treat your evenings and nights as your peak, focused, and boundaried time. Lean into admin and light social time being earlier in your day, but not the early morning.
Dolphins - 🤷🏽♂️? Okay, that’s a half-joke. You likely need more unstructured, open time throughout a day so you can be flexible about whatever cycle you happen to be in.
Even one small change, like moving a weekly meeting or shifting your focus blocks by an hour, can make your days smoother and more productive. That 15-20% effectiveness gap that many of us are trying to fill often amounts to when we’re doing what.
Very interesting! I wake up a lot earlier these days as I enter my mid-50s. Instead of jumping up, getting ready in 20 mins and starting work as I used to do, I take my time now, read, drink several cups of tea, exercise etc., before finally starting work around 10 a.m. like I always have (I’m self-employed and can work the hours I want to). I go to bed earlier so I get enough sleep overall.
So regarding work, I guess my chronotype hasn’t changed with age. I wonder is there any research on that?