The Power Move of Working the 5-to-9 Before the 9-to-5
清早5点到9点工作让你在职场脱颖而出
Working a regular day, even into the evening, is for mere mortals. Those out to impress start well before dawn.
每天朝九晚五地工作，甚至加班到很晚，这只是普通人的常规操作。那些被老板赏识的人早在黎明前就开始工作了。
Callum Borchers
卡勒姆·博彻斯
As a competitive rower in my long-ago prime, I sometimes used a racing strategy called fly and die. Sprinting to an early lead often yielded a fast overall time, even if I couldn’t hold my torrid pace through the finish line.
我很久以前的巅峰时期，作为一名竞技赛艇运动员，我有时会采用一种名为“飞冲力竭”（fly and die）的比赛策略。即使我无法将极速状态保持到终点，开局冲刺取得领先通常也能创下很快的总体成绩。
Some professionals take a similar approach to their desk jobs, starting their workdays with a 5 a.m. to 9 a.m. shift. They are up before the sun – and, more important, before their co-workers – to get a jump on the workday and impress the boss.
一些专业人士对办公室工作也采取了类似的方法，他们的工作日从早上5点开始，到早上9点的时候，他们已经比别人提前上了一轮班。他们比太阳起得早——更重要的是比同事起得早——以便在整个工作日抢占先机，并且给老板留下深刻印象。
Nothing screams go-getter like a predawn email! Getting stuff done early allows them to clock out midafternoon and still look like stars, even if their routines require Ben Franklin-esque sleep schedules and vats of caffeine.
没有什么比黎明前的电子邮件更能激发人们的斗志了！提早完成工作可以让他们在下午三点就下班，而且看起来依然是业绩斐然的明星，即使他们完成日常事务需要采用本·富兰克林（Ben Franklin）式的作息时间表和大量的咖啡因。
Melissa O’Blenis rises by 4:30 a.m. for prayer and Peloton time before starting her job at the digital consulting firm Argano.
数字咨询公司Argano的员工梅丽莎·奥布莱尼斯（Melissa O’Blenis）凌晨4点半起床，先完成祷告和单车健身，然后开始工作。
“I just love checking things off my list,” she says. “I need that focus time away from Teams messages, email notifications and text alerts.”
“我喜欢把待办清单上的任务一项一项地划掉，”她说。“我需要在一段时间内集中注意力，远离Teams消息、电子邮件通知和短信提醒的干扰。”
A mother with two sets of twins, O’Blenis, 48, often breaks for her kids’ afternoon sports without feeling guilty or judged. Colleagues jokingly call her Granny because her 9 p.m. bedtime makes the early starts possible. But Granny got the last laugh when she was promoted to a director-level role in March.
48岁的奥布莱尼斯育有两对双胞胎，她经常在下午放下工作去参加孩子的体育活动，而不会心怀愧疚，也不会被指指点点。同事们开玩笑地称她为“老奶奶”，因为她晚上9点就要上床睡觉，才有可能早起工作。但这位“老奶奶”在3月份被晋升到总监级别，笑到了最后。
More than 90% of knowledge workers want to flex their hours, according to surveys by Slack’s Future Forum. In the pandemic many of us got in the habit of handling personal commitments during standard business hours, then catching up on work tasks later.
根据Slack未来论坛（Future Forum）的调查，超过90%的知识型工作者希望能灵活安排工作时间。在疫情期间，我们许多人养成了在标准工作时间处理个人事务、随后再把工作补上的习惯。
Now that the office battle is largely over, fighting a return to rigid, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. schedules might be workers’ last stand. But managers complain about afternoon dead zones when employees are out of pocket.
如今，返回办公室之争已经基本结束，努力避免恢复严格的朝九晚五工作制可能是员工们的最后一战。但管理人员抱怨办公室在下午临近下班时段陷入“死亡区间”， 根本没人在上班。
The solution for more workers is starting sooner instead of finishing later. Workflow software maker Asana reports that 21.4% of users are logging on between 5 a.m. and 9 a.m. this year, up from 19.8% in 2021. About 12% of work tasks are completed before 9 a.m., the company says, compared with 10% before the pandemic.
对于越来越多的员工来说，解决方案就是早点开始工作而不是晚点结束。工作流程软件制造商Asana报告称，今年有21.4%的用户在上午5点至9点之间登录，高于2021年的19.8%。该公司称，大约12%的工作任务是在上午9点之前完成的，而疫情前的这一比例为10%。
Early-bird bosses
早鸟老板
Gibran Washington and his basketball teammates at Hofstra University used to run at 6 a.m. He maintained his early wakeups while climbing the ranks in food-and-beverage management.
吉布兰·华盛顿（Gibran Washington）和他在霍夫斯特拉大学（Hofstra University）的篮球队友过去常在早上6点跑步。他在餐饮管理领域步步高升的同时一直保持着早起的习惯。
By 9 a.m. meetings, he had already exercised, meditated and put in a couple of hours of work.
到上午9点开会的时候，他已经完成了锻炼和冥想，并且工作了几个小时。
“I always found myself more prepared than my colleagues who hadn’t had their first cup of coffee yet,” says Washington, 40, who doesn’t drink coffee. Now he is chief executive of Ethos Cannabis, a chain of 12 dispensaries in three states, and rises as early as ever.
40岁的华盛顿说：“我总是发现自己比那些还没有喝第一杯咖啡的同事准备得更充分。”他自己不喝咖啡。如今，他是Ethos Cannabis的首席执行官，还是一如既往地早起。该公司是一家在三个州拥有12家药房的连锁企业。
Waking and working ahead of the pack is a common CEO habit, from Apple’s Tim Cook to General Motors’ Mary Barra. Even if your ambitions are less grand than the corner office, starting early could help you stand out for one simple reason: The boss is probably up, too, and taking notice.
从苹果公司（Apple）的蒂姆·库克（Tim Cook）到通用汽车（General Motors）的玛丽·博拉（Mary Barra），比其他人早起工作是首席执行官的常见习惯。即使你没有成为高管的野心，早起也能帮助你脱颖而出，原因很简单：你的老板可能也起得很早，并且注意到你了。
Matt Kiger says being the first one into the office helped him catch his manager’s eye and advance after changing careers from education to media sales. He would set his alarm for 5 a.m., hop a train from Connecticut to New York and be at his workstation before 7.
马特·凯格（Matt Kiger）表示，作为第一个进入办公室的人，他成功引起了经理的注意，在从教育转向媒体销售岗位后获得了晋升。他会把闹钟定在早上5点，从康涅狄格州坐火车到纽约，7点之前到达工位。
“I thought, ‘What is it going to take to break through?’” he recalls. “‘It’s going to take being there when my boss comes in, already at my desk making phone calls.’”
“我心想，‘要怎么做才能脱颖而出？’”他回忆道。“诀窍就是，当我的老板走进来时，我已经坐在办公桌前打电话了。”
Now a senior vice president for digital sales at Townsquare Media, Kiger, 47, says much of the daily communication among company leaders happens by text and phone from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. It’s possible to succeed as a night owl, he says, but people who sleep in risk missing a window when many executives are awake and accessible. While some working parents can’t swing early-morning meetings, others like Kiger say they are the key to being present at kids’ after-school activities.
47岁的凯格现在是Townsquare Media负责数字销售的高级副总裁。他说，公司领导之间的大部分日常沟通都是在早上6点和8点之间通过短信和电话完成的。他说，夜猫子也有可能取得成功，但是，当许多高管都已经醒来并进入工作状态时，还在沉睡的人很有可能会错过机会窗口。尽管一些在职父母不能抽身参加清晨的会议，但包括凯格在内的其他人则表示，清晨开会是让他们可以参加孩子课后活动的关键。
Getting the worm
早起的鸟儿有虫吃
Matt Sunshine – whose surname surely predestined him to be a morning person – wakes at 5:30 a.m. to read the news. Then he cycles or takes a Pilates class and is on his computer by 7.
马特·桑夏恩（Matt Sunshine）——他的姓氏注定了他是个早起的人——早上5点半起床看新闻。然后他会骑自行车或者参加普拉提课程，7点之前打开电脑。
Sunshine is CEO of the Center for Sales Strategy in Tampa, Fla., which helps healthcare, media and professional-services companies generate leads. He doesn’t expect his 55 employees to follow his schedule but says it becomes progressively harder to get his attention as the day goes on and his calendar fills up with meetings. He also tries to log off by 5:30 p.m. for family time, so working after hours won’t necessarily make an impression.
桑夏恩是佛罗里达州帕坦的Center for Sales Strategy的首席执行官，该中心帮助医疗保健、媒体和专业服务公司获取潜在客户。他并不指望手下的55名员工遵循他的作息时间，但他表示，随着一天当中时间的推移，他的日程表上排满了会议，想要引起他的注意会越来越难。他会尽量在下午5点半之前下班，以陪伴家人，因此，加班加点的员工未必能给他留下深刻印象。
“If you want to get my attention, a good time to get me is first thing in the morning,” Sunshine, 55, says. “Because people know I’m an early riser, I think that does influence other people to do the same.”
“如果你想引起我的关注，让我在早上第一个看见你是个不错的时机，”55岁的桑夏恩说。“因为大家都知道我是个早起的人，我认为这确实会带动周围的人也这么做。”
Elvi Caperonis’s morning routine is next-level organized. Her alarm rings at 6 a.m. She goes for a run at 6:30. At 7 she showers and eats breakfast. At 7:30 she opens her laptop and sets a timer for 25 minutes. That’s her first block to focus on the most important task of the day before a five-minute break. She repeats the on-off work pattern throughout the day.
埃尔维·卡佩罗尼斯（Elvi Caperonis）早上的安排更加井然有序。她的闹钟会在早上6点响起。她6点半去跑步。7点钟洗澡，然后吃早餐。7点半，她会打开笔记本电脑，设定25分钟的计时器。这是她专注于一天当中最重要任务的第一个时间段，然后她会休息5分钟。一整天，她都会重复这种间歇式的工作模式。
Caperonis, a technical program manager at Amazon, makes a daily to-do list with nine items. She rates one critical, three medium-level and five lower-priority. This helps her work efficiently and in the right order.
卡佩罗尼斯是亚马逊（Amazon）的一名技术项目经理，每天会列出一份包含九项任务的待办事项清单。她会把其中一项、三项和五项任务分别标注高、中、低的优先等级。这可以帮助她按照正确的顺序高效地工作。
The 41-year-old works from home in Florida and often picks her daughter up from school at 2:30 p.m., freedoms she has preserved partly by being highly productive early in the day, she says. Much of her job involves identifying potential risks to a project’s success, and when she sends an early-morning alert it arrives really early for company leaders in the Pacific time zone.
41岁的卡佩罗尼斯在佛罗里达州的家中工作，经常在下午2点半接女儿放学。她说，她之所以享有这样的自由，部分原因是她早上的工作效率很高。她的大部分工作是负责识别某个项目成功所面临的潜在风险，当她在清晨发出警报时，确实会很早到达位于太平洋时区的公司领导手中。
“They appreciate having that information first thing when they open their email,” she says. “In my experience, leaders are also early birds.”
“他们一打开邮件就能先看见这些信息，会觉得帮助很大，”她说。“根据我的经验，领导们也是早起的鸟儿。”
