The other day I came across Steve Pavlina, who runs a consultancy offering "personal development for smart people." He forced himself to go from being B to an A because, he claims, the only way to success is to become an early riser:

http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/05/how-to-become-an-early-riser/

He continues on to align productivity with checking your sleeping patterns to an A person's rhythm. How to do this? "Go to bed only when you're too sleepy to stay up, and get up at a fixed time every morning."

Gee, I thought that's what most of us B's have to do every day anyway. And look where that has brought us: sleep deprivation, low immune systems, mood swings, depressive tendencies, social stigmatization, low productivity: bascially none of that elusive success at all.

The B-society tries not to focus too much on less sleep is better, or when to get up (again, this is a common misconception of what we are fighting for: more sleep), but on the exact same thing as Steve: Productivity. Success. Quality Of Life.

Again, we need to move away from the thought that early rising is the equivalent of high productivity. Or that the less you sleep, the more you are awake to produce. It's not the number of hours you put in, it's the quality of hours that counts.

You see this in millions of workers every day: B people getting up before they are wired to, and sitting at their desk the first couple of hours waking up. You see it in the late afternoons, when A people start to crash and get unfocused in their work. How many productive work hours are we loosing here? And to who's benefit?

In Denmark, a young professional Michala Hammer was the first in the world to have written into her contract that she was a B, and the company to offer her flexible hours on the basis of this. She made a point to her company, because she already is a very productive person, and in order for her to continue being productive, they agreed it was better to shift her work hours a few hours later every day:

http://www.b-productive.dk/eng/unik.asp?menu=bcases&valgt=unik

Does this sound like an unsuccessful person to you?

If you feel right now that you are loosing valuable work hours on waking up in front of the computer, if you are one of those notoriously late to work, if you feel like you are just getting into things, when everyone is getting up to leave, you probably need to do the same thing as Michala, and rearrange your work schedule. This is how you do it:

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1. Try and test when you would prefer to wake up and get up

2. Explain to your supervisor that you are a B-person, with a tendency to wake up and function first around your tested time (remind him you are a member of the international B-society). Perhaps even go as far as to admit that the reason you are late and not working well every day, is because of this.

3. Highlight the advantages with having a B-person in their staff, the heightened level of productivity this offers, and what little changes this would mean to your work, with no extra charges

4. Have you contract re-written, so as to ensure your situation, also towards your colleagues and future job prospects

5. Start a life of B-productivity

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I remember having a studentjob as personal assistent for a consultant at a larger business association a few years ago. I had to arrive every day at work at 9, and I was always late, which I was terribly upset about. The consultant I was working for pulled me into his office one day and said, "Sophie, you are really doing a good job here, but I can obviously tell that this morning thing does not work for you. Let's try this: why don't you turn up at 10am instead and we'll see how it goes."

After that, everything was a breeze. I was never late again. It was a major revelation to me! Just one hour's shift, and everything was back to normal. It showed me the true benefit of asking for a later worktime, which I have continued to do, to this day.

In order words: we are not unproductive, we are just B-productive.

To counter Steve's Aristotle qoute, the equally clever poet Ovid once said "Take rest; a field that has rested gives bountiful crop."

sophie, editor