KEY POINTS:
Have you ever noticed how half the morning can be swallowed up chatting with colleagues, answering endless phone calls and a mountain of email?
Not so for Jo Allison, head of marketing at Gen-i. She's one of a breed of executives and employees who get two or three hours work done before anyone else gets to work. For some jobs and people, eliminating the noise is necessary. It's not surprising therefore that some of the most productive employees and executives are those that start, one, two or even three hours before the rest.
They're the people on the motorway between 5am and 6am.
Allison rises at 5.30am every morning and is at her home office desk, which has all the technology of her office, by 6am. Typically she won't start her commute to central Auckland until after 9am.
"I spend the first 30 to 45 minutes clearing down emails. The next hour will be me getting a piece of thinking done about the business or a piece of work that is important for the growth of my team and what we are trying to achieve, or writing a paper that needs to go to the board," says Allison.
She believes that the early undisturbed hours allow her to concentrate working on the business.
"By nine to nine thirty my cellphone starts ringing. I think people feed off people, so if I can free up more time to work in the business and develop my staff then that should be my priority."
Allison does receive calls at times during her early morning stint, but typically her colleagues or superiors will text message her first to see if she's available, respecting each other's work life balance. "It's then up to me."
The early starts also allow her to get "the important stuff done, not just the urgent stuff". Conversely, on the occasional day when she starts later than usual, she struggles to see what she has achieved.
"I just get caught up doing stuff, not doing things to grow the business."
By scheduling that quiet time for working on the business, Allison believes she has advanced her career. "People know they can come to me and give me a business that needs to be improved or go in a different direction and I will do it."
She typically leaves the office up to two hours before some of her colleagues, but she isn't subjected to the eyebrow raising that some staff do get if they leave early. It also means she has time for exercise, which she finds essential for stress relief. Currently training for a marathon, she can leave work at 4.30pm to do a two-hour run along the waterfront or other training and be finished before nightfall.
Career Analysts managing director Anne Fulton often starts at 5am. It means that she can get her administration done and have more time available to be with clients of her career coaching business.
Leaving early, no matter what time you start, can raise the ire of colleagues whose selective vision only sees the leaving time. However, employees at Fulton's firm are also encouraged to go home early if they start early, something that the staff appreciates, but it isn't always easy to achieve.
It's best to try and listen to your body clock, says Iain McCormick, managing director of the Executive Coaching Centre. You should undertake important tasks at an hour when your body is at its natural peak, says McCormick. Having said that, it is possible to move your body clock by a few hours with some training.
"You need about four to six weeks of consistent behaviour pattern to change your body clock, resting in the evenings, going to bed earlier and getting up with the alarm clock," says McCormick.
Working longer hours doesn't necessarily make you more productive, he says. You become more productive by managing your time.
Those organisations that do raise eyebrows about employees leaving early typically have an unhealthy culture, says McCormick.
In that case, early bird employees should document their successes to ensure that colleagues appreciate that they're performing.
Another early riser is mortgage broker Sue Tierney, who is behind her desk before about 6.30am every morning. She uses her early morning hours to deal with complex issues.
She puts her telephone onto voicemail and does her best work before the clients begin ringing.
"I like those early hours when nobody else is about. I have a clear head and it is a fresh start to the day. I think, 'Great, what am I going to achieve today?'
As a result, she often achieves more in the first 90 minutes than in the remaining eight hours before she goes home.
"If I get to work at 8am like everybody else I feel like I have lost half a day," says Tierney, who runs Mortgage by Design, a mortgage broking firm and is a member of the Auckland Property Investors' Association board. "In the day I feel I'm shifting paper, whereas in the mornings I can achieve things. I do my planning and the stuff that needs intense concentration or time."
In Tierney's case, getting up early comes naturally. From the age of 10 until her late 20s she worked every weekend at Christchurch Airport's cafeteria from 5am.
Miles Valentine, founder and CEO of IT firm Zeacom, starts work at 5.50am in the morning to be available during US business hours. This is because half of his company's staff is based there. The early start makes him feel more efficient.
Valentine works from home and still feels the need to fire off emails to members of the company board to ensure they know he's working.
"I certainly find that by 9.30am I have done half a day's work," he says.
One potential downside of being an early riser is a lack of sleep.
Continually going to bed late and getting up early can seriously affect your ability to concentrate and therefore performance. What's more if you're caught napping at 3pm or suffering attention problems, that's what your colleagues will remember.
It's also often difficult for women with young children to start early - although as the children grow older this changes.
It is also important that you do not dismiss sleep as a waste of time and a barrier to success.
Science of sleep
People such as US Secreatary of State Condoleezza Rice, former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and US television personality Martha Stewart claim to need just four hours sleep each night, and starting work often before 5am. But that doesn't mean that everyone can do with such a small amount of sleep.
Here are some guidelines:
* If you think best early, do your thinking then.
* Set up a routine that you stick to, such as doing any outstanding reading first, then clear your inbox.
* Turn your phone off. If people know you're at your desk at 6am, they'll call you then.
* Disconnect if you don't want to be disturbed by the sight or sound of incoming email.
* Set a time before which you won't have meetings.
