Are you creating at the right time of day?

I've been reading When by Daniel Pink, and one thing has become resoundingly clear: the when of creativity matters more than most of us realize.

Have you ever noticed you feel genuinely creative at a certain time of day, and totally flat at another? According to Pink, that’s not mood, that's biology.

It comes down to something called your chronotype — your natural rhythm for when you're alert, when you're sluggish, and when your brain is loose enough to actually make creative leaps. Dr. Michael Breus (known as The Sleep Doctor) puts it simply: some people peak in the morning, others don't hit their stride until later. There are four types — lion, bear, wolf, dolphin — and most of us have never thought to figure out which one we are, let alone how to integrate it into our creative process.

Surprisingly, your most creative thinking usually doesn't happen when you feel sharpest. It happens a little later, when you're relaxed and your inner critic has stepped out for a bit. Pink calls it the rebound. It's that window in the day when ideas connect more freely.

Knowing this has helped me to be more strategic in how I structure my day and time so that I can pair the right work with the right time.

Generating ideas and drafting? That's rebound work. Editing and refining? Peak. Emails and admin? Save those for when your energy dips — your trough — so you're not burning good creative hours on stuff that doesn't need them.

How might you restructure your day, tasks, time in a way that supports when you are most creatively primed?