Camryn,

I did quite a bit of research for this piece, just as a side effect of trying to find articles for some of the links. I noticed a pretty clear pattern in the productivity benefits that morning larks enjoy -- they include things like being more assertive, more successful in the workplace, and so on.

The general pattern seems, to me, to have far less to do with the "morningness" of morning larks, and far more to do with the fact that they have high energy early in the day, at precisely the time that they are in the workplace surrounded by other people. It's a great time for networking. I noticed that many of the larks that people praise as examples for why morning larks are more successful are CEO's, but when you think about it, that is likely because the job of CEO, which requires people to be well-prepared and be on top of their leadership role all day, almost requires a person to be a lark in order to do it well.

Researchers have also noted that night owls tend to be more creative and also more social (at least informally speaking), and better at intensive tasks like programming, but again I think this has less to do with the "eveningness" of night owls, and more to do with the fact that they have peak energy at times when the world is either socializing (between 9pm and 1am) or silent (between 2am and 4am). I would be unsurprised if we found that there was a division between night owls, with "early" night owls being more social and "late" night owls being more creative.

You become what you practice. Larks and owls have the energy and the opportunity to practice different things. For my part, I'm happy being an owl; there's joy in working late into the evening when I can focus on creative, brain-intensive things.

J