It all starts with your natural waking time.

We are told that the early bird catches the worm, and a flood of LinkedIn statuses confirm that getting up early is the key to success… or is it? Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson and Mark Wahlberg swear by their early morning starts (Mark gets up at 2.30am!), but what does science have to say about it all? It looks like, yes, early mornings work for lots of us (especially the LinkedIn humblebraggers, morning gym bunnies and early meditators), but success actually has nothing to do with the time.

Early starts don’t work for everyone

300 ‘successful’ people were interviewed about their routines, and the average wake-up time was a very precise 6.27am, but that doesn’t make it perfect for everyone.

Laura Vanderkam, author of ‘What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast’, suggests that an early morning wake-up call isn’t the perfect fit for everyone. She says the best thing to do is find what is most productive for you, and if that’s a 9am start, great. You need to tailor your morning routine to fit the things you want to do, not force yourself into a routine just because that’s what Tony Robbins says.

If you naturally are at your best late at night, there is no point pushing yourself to get up early. It will disrupt your natural rhythm and for not much (if any) gain. Simply make use of the time you have.

Among those who prefer late starts are President Obama, Robert Louis Stevenson, Charles Darwin and Elvis Presley: all wildly successful night owls.

What to do if you’re a night owl

In the dead of night – it’s peaceful and quiet, it’s your time to soar. Photo by Frida Bredesen on Unsplash

Those early risers say the reason they love the early mornings is because it’s peaceful and they get so much done. Night owls experience the same level of peace at 1am.

If you do enjoy working late into the night, it’s best to find a job that doesn’t start early. Consider working for a company that needs to co-ordinate with another country in a later time zone. This can help set you up to have your optimal hours actually happen at work – and allow you to sleep until a more comfortable time in the morning.

The winning morning routine according to science (regardless of what time you wake up)

Wake up at the same time each day

A study that followed 61 Harvard students for a month found that people who consistently woke up at the same time every day were higher performers than those who had a changeable schedule.

Do things that make you feel good

Morning people seem to carve time out of their early hours to do something that makes them feel good. It might be exercise, yoga, meditation or simply writing in a journal. That time they set aside for themselves is incredibly beneficial.

Marie Kondo (of course) says that cleaning, opening windows or burning incense might be a good way to kick off your day.

Or maybe fu*k yoga/meditation/writing a journal – maybe eating breakfast in bed is your thing

Kill your alarm clock

Learn to wake up on demand. Alarm clocks might wake us up on time, but they also wake us up in a particularly unpleasant way. That jolt that drags us up from the midst of a sleep cycle creates ‘sleep inertia’. It’s a period of brain impairment that affects our cognitive and motor functions, and results in a desperate need for coffee.

The snooze button is the other killer. If you doze off again, you start another sleep cycle, which is interrupted again. It makes you feel more tired than if you’d gotten up in the first place.

Go to bed on time

Regardless of when you plan to get up, you need to go to bed on time – that means eight hours before you need to wake up. Anything else can end up negatively influencing your whole day.

Have a cold shower (Tony Robbins swears by it)

A cold shower in the morning kick-starts your body, improves circulation, and can actually make you feel happier. Tony Robbins does this every morning, taking a quick dip in a 14°C pool. Brrrrisk.

Or maybe have a hot bath and get that circulation going!

Avoid rush hour

People with longer commutes experience more backaches, digestive issues, headaches, fatigue and sleep disturbances. It’s also a total waste of time. That extra half hour you spend in traffic could be put to better use (like yoga, or eating breakfast). Having an earlier commute – or one that’s after the morning rush dies down – will make your whole day much more enjoyable and productive.

Make your life work for you

Ignore the crazy celebrity schedules, and ra-ra hustle-hard articles – an exceptional morning routine has nothing to do with what time you roll out of bed. Evenings can be just as productive as mornings, and those early risers aren’t more virtuous or effective than anyone else – it’s just that they are hard-wired to prefer an early start.

It’s far more important that you get seven to eight hours of sleep, find time to start the day pleasantly (and a cold shower, of course) and avoid time-sucks like long commutes. In short, the ideal morning routine starts with what works for you, not Tony Robbins.