I achieve flow state by starting work at 4.30 am as a remote worker

The essence of feminine leadership is to listen to your body as the source of intuition. Intuition-based decision-making is gentle and effective.

Hello lovelies,

I hope you had a wonderful rest during your festive holiday. For those of you, who, just like me,  still need to work outside the 25-26 and 31 Dec - 1 Jan, I hope you enjoy the lesser workload or less busy request.

In any case, I hope you find peace in your daily life, regardless of the holidays or not.

This post is the last post of The Gentle Roadmap in 2023. When I started this newsletter a little late in Q4’2023, I just wanted to train my consistency in writing. I pushed myself to post 2 articles a week: 1 in Substack and 1 in Medium, still playing around with which topics work best to help the readers on each platform. 

Please read until the end to unlock a new year gift for my subscribers. We celebrate the Hogmanay here (the Scottish tradition for New Year).

In the last post, I talked about the first step in exercising your feminine leadership, which was to understand your body. Being gentle and working with the situations, rather than against them, is the key to a softer and gentler life, which is a good leadership practice, too. 

As the last post’s story was about my dietary choice, this post is about my circadian rhythm, as promised. I will link what is about the circadian rhythm that is related to feminine leadership. So, here’s the story (and the connection).

Problem statement

As I was back in Scotland by the end of November 2023 to apply for my Graduate Visa which should open more possibilities, I was faced with my problem weakness: health issue potential.

Health-related thoughts are my Achilles’ heel, that’s what I’ve been learning in the past few years. I was not that health-conscious before 2021. The start was an incident in late 2021 when I woke up from an afternoon nap with a racing heart and a discomfort feeling that crept up my breastbone. Having a father who had received a stent surgery in 2019, my immediate thought was: oh shoot, I was having a heart attack. That incident preceded my ins and outs of doctors’ consultations the following 2 years (until mid-2023), who all cleared my health bill of potential heart problems based on various tests, including extensive ones like CT-scan and Holter monitoring.

I could blame the vaccine reaction all I wanted for the weird feelings I kept having after that 2021 afternoon nap incident, but my further investigations down the road based on my initiatives and combining the suggestions from the doctors made me think to resolve my gut problems, which manifested in many symptoms including heartburn, chest discomfort, and indigestion. Vaccine-related or not, my health-conscious self keeps referring to podcasts, books, and videos for a healthy lifestyle. I believe that there’s an ideal goal post of the health indicators that is achievable through a healthy lifestyle (Disclaimer: this might lead to health anxiety, which I will cover in another post later). And since it’s about lifestyle, I applied the holistic healing process. It means I need to pay attention to the 3 pillars of health: good rest, exercise, and nutrition.

I will post about my exercise and hiking hobby sometime. In summary, I love low-impact exercises. I jog daily on a treadmill when I was in Jakarta, but back in Scotland, and now in a little town where there’s no PureGym, I can’t use my PureGym membership here. But it’s not a biggie, I can just take a walk everywhere anyway. And I live near a country park where I can explore the walking trail. So, all is good in the exercise department. Besides, I don’t like idling around all day. I start my day always with some core-focused exercise.

Since my journey in figuring out the nutrition for my body has been covered in the previous post, this post delves into how I manage my circadian rhythm once I establish my routine here.

As I’ve mentioned several times in other posts, I work remotely for a company with its HQ being in Jakarta, Indonesia, which is in GMT+7 timezone. The company does allow remote working. In fact, many of our employees don’t reside in Jakarta but are scattered across the country. However, with only 3 time zones within the country, it’s not an issue. As I’m the only one with this huge gap of a time zone due to my location preference and visa situation, it’s only natural if I don’t force my new schedule on other team members, such as changing the meeting timetable. It is me who should adapt to the common working hours. 

Since Scotland is 7 hours later than Indonesia (or 6 hours in DST months), the meetings will fall into my early morning hours when I follow their schedule. My squad has a morning Scrum routine, such as sprint planning or daily sync that is conducted before lunchtime. Their lunchtime (noon to 1 pm) corresponds to my 5-6 am. If I want to attend the daily stand-up that starts at 9.30 am Jakarta time, I’ve got to wake up and start my day by 2.30 am! 

At first, I tried to stick to this routine: waking up at 2 am starting work immediately, and wrapping up work at 11 am (which corresponds to their end of a work day at 6 pm). I also experimented with the biphasic sleep cycle and told my body that it would work out and that I only needed to endure it. But due to the major things my body experienced at the same time:

• Time zone huge change

• Jet lag and routine change

• Climate change (from ~30-34 degrees Celsius of temperate weather to -2 to 8 degrees in a matter of days)

• Different sleep hygiene due to this biphasic experiment,

I fell ill after running that routine for a fortnight. I called it quits.

I simply called it as it was: the biphasic experiment ruined my immune system and my body reacted quickly to tell me before it’s become too late in the future, as bad sleeping hygiene is disastrous for your general health.

Solution

I mustered the courage to tell my squad and boss that I would start my day at 4.30 am and consequently finish working at 12.30 pm (skipping the 1-hour lunch break) because my body couldn’t handle the 2 - 11 am routine. I decided to speak up because it would affect my productivity in the long run. My biggest fear was multiplied that if I had kept the harmful routine out of keeping the peace with the team’s schedule, I would’ve:

• Lost my job because of bad results, stemming from low focus and bad rest

• Had declining health soon due to bad sleeping hygiene

This comes with the tradeoff that I could only respond to the requests or reply to chats starting from 11.30 am their time. But I compromise by finishing work at 7.30 pm their time. In the grand scheme of things, this span of working hours is not weird at all since it’s only a little later in Jakarta time, and I know people who indeed work this schedule (prefer later start and finish). The overlapping time between my working hours and my team’s still allows plenty of time to hold meetings together. As for the early morning sprint ritual, I discussed it with the squad leader. This could be done async from my side by leaving questions/progress status on the daily stand-up documents, which the squad could address every morning. If they need anything to clarify from me as the product manager, they could leave the questions and tag me, and I can start working through that after my working hours begin.

Analysis

So, that’s the current resolution. I’ve been in that rhythm for almost a month, and I can feel my health improves in general, to be honest. That’s because my waking hours, which are from 4.15 am to 8 or 9 pm are the most optimal for body health, based on research results that I read. You can counter me on this, but this works for me. And I was raised in a culture where people wake up early for their morning prayers (the Muslim community in Indonesia, and my Catholic faith community and family where we say our 6 am morning prayers). My mum wakes up at 4.30 am every day since I was a child, and I started my school days at 7 or 8 am, so waking up at 4 or 5 am is not a strange thing for me. Because of this upbringing and culture, my body somewhat “knows” and is conditioned on the ideal waking up time. The 2 am routine felt strenuous, but the 4.15 am is the sweet spot. I can also still incorporate the morning routine that I practised in Jakarta here, with some minor adjustments that do not compromise the quality.

You can find the comparison in the table below.

So, what’s the long explanation about? What’s the connection to the feminine leadership?

The Body and Mind Connection in Leadership

This is the second pearl I unlock for you in this topic:

Knowing your body does not stand in isolation. It rarely does. Once you’re attuned to your body, the clearer your intuition is. And with practised intuition, the better you make a decision. You will feel aligned with your missions, and the actions you take are going to feel effortless.

That’s the condensed version of this wisdom. If you browse the manifestation techniques and listen to many teachers, they have the common theme of ego death and taking inspired actions. I also mentioned inspired actions in the previous posts. This way, the actions you’re taking to achieve your goals do not feel forced. Taking action in a joyful, free, and inspired manner will elate your feelings, making you more grateful and positive about the situation. And you know the drill, right? The joyful and light feelings are high vibrations. Gratitude is high vibration. You will take action out of the feeling of abundance.

And the more things you’re grateful for in your life, the more things you’ll be grateful for will come.

But let’s circle back: why does being attuned to our body sharpen our intuition? 

Or, let me offer you a more thought-provoking idea: why do we need to take action based on intuition? Isn’t spur of the moment wisdom opposite of logic?

Being attuned to our body sharpens intuition and taking actions out of feelings is encouraged. A scientific topic you can explore on your own is the GBA (Gut-Brain-Axis). Your gut affects your thinking. That’s why we call it “gut feeling”. It’s only natural to doubt this potent yet dormant force in your body if you’ve been using only your brain to decide for many years. You can do some research on your own about the intuitive decision-making that is helpful for business growth, too. How many times have you heard anecdotal examples of a businessperson taking a leap of faith? Data and cerebral processes are our guidance, indeed, in thinking of the right direction. But the major decision, the cliff between the yeses and noes, lies in the intuition itself. I want to go out on a limb here and say that intuition is the essence of the decision-making process that combines our conscious and subconscious knowledge. This is aligned with The Power of Now’s idea that our brain only represents conscious thinking. And to get the best of our power, to harness the power of now, we have to listen to our intuition.

So, it’s not about feeling vs logical decision-making.

It’s about holistic vs incomplete decision-making.

In my anecdote about the sleeping schedule above, my body told me that this was not right and I had to take action immediately before it worsened in the future, both for my job, my company, and more importantly, my health. My body was sensitive like this because it’s been trained in the past couple of years with the trauma and the healing process. So, when it says something, I know I can’t numb or talk myself out of it.

The Caveat of Belief System

An interesting analysis of a belief system is: what if I had believed that a biphasic sleep schedule would work, that there had been nothing wrong with it, or that I had been raised in non-morning people folks?

My body told me that waking up at 2 am was unhealthy, probably because of the belief system it’s been accustomed to over the years. I saw people who have woken up early morning for life and research findings that confirmed the benefits of being an early riser.

But what if those are all my filter bubbles and echo chambers? What if biphasic does work and it’s got no harmful effects in the long run?

Perhaps, the universe I see that has contradictive results of biphasic sleep is indeed a result of my filter bubble, my belief system. I tried discarding my belief system for the first fortnight back in Scotland, and I failed because my body kept reverting to waking up at a “normal” schedule.

So, from the biphasic sleep experiment, there are only 2 things confirmed:

• My body only conforms to its belief system

• If in the parallel universe, the version of me worked with biphasic sleep, I would never know, because I couldn’t discard this belief system entirely

Benefits of Listening to Intuition that Yielded Successful Results in My Career

1/ Achieving flow state

Up until this point, I haven’t addressed the flow state. This term is the central theme of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s book, Flow, which describes a state where you feel no blockage in your creative energy, in your willingness to complete whatever you set out to do. Ideas flow freely, you feel like you’re “in the zone”, and you just know that you need to outpour your endeavour this period otherwise you might lose it later.

The good thing is flow state can be built into habits. As with the lessons I gained from Atomic Habits by James Clear, with my body’s preference to wake up in gentleness in the morning and sleep early according to modern society’s standard, I combine all this knowledge into getting into the flow state every morning. I wake up, feeling refreshed after enough sleep, and jump straight to action: morning routine, open my Slack and calendar, check the latest threads and respond to the questions left by other stakeholders or developers. No fuss, my brain can catch up immediately.

The beauty of the gentle morning, especially now during winter, is nothing that will disrupt you. Everything is quiet. I know that even my neighbourhood is peaceful during the day, but the tranquillity early morning to focus your energy on important and cerebral tasks is incomparable. 

You can picture the intimate and unseen beauty of working, typing on the keyboard, and journalling in the early morning when everything is still quiet.

Perhaps, this is why my body slips readily into this kind of quiet morning routine. 

It’s the dualism: the quiet external world yet the rich and busy internal world when I do my work, the gentle mornings yet the puzzles in discussion threads a product manager must solve.

My brain and body thrive in this setting, and I find it quite easy to slip into work mode immediately.

2/ Asking to change team at my previous company

This was an old story yet still relevant.

Long story short: I was recruited for a project, let’s call that Project A. However, shortly after I was hired, the team was dissolved due to the change in management direction. I was then transferred as a new PM to another team, handling Project B which I didn’t like doing. I tried finding the good sides of Project B, but I couldn’t live up to my potential. After a couple of months there, I caught wind that Project A was revived. Rather than surrendering to feeling stuck and unfulfilled, I gathered up my courage to speak up to my manager to leave the team and go back to Project A. I was back to what I intended to do and got an even better result: doing fintech which eventually led me to my current career trajectory. Intuition-led decision-making, people.

3/ Since the success of story 2 above, speaking up my intuition became easier. I received this intuitive download that I could see a promotion from a Senior PM to an Assistant Manager. It wasn’t an easy process and it was subjective to my managers, but expressing my career goal was the first step. It signalled my commitment to achieve this goal, which set the universe in motion. Acknowledging and acting out of my intuition primed my mindset to play the long game. When I was granted the promotion to Assistant Manager almost 2 years later, I knew I wouldn’t have gone far in my fintech and product management path had I not acted on the calling. This is because to achieve that promotion I had to go above and beyond, constantly challenging my limits and upgrading my skills in the process to earn the recognition. My intuition opened to me a world of opportunities that felt like hardship at first. 

Final Words

• Due to homeostasis, I still keep my schedule even during weekends and national holidays, so my body can expect to wake up and sleep at similar times every day

• The conclusion of this story is to listen to your body more, acknowledge your belief system, and take inspired actions based on your intuition. 

• The “ask and it will be given to you” lesson from the Bible starts with the “ask” part. Listening to your intuition informs you what to ask and how to ask. Hence, the inspired actions. 

• And the combination of a prime mind and a series of inspired actions? Success.

For You Who Have Read Till the End: A Special Hogmanay Gift

I’ve been thinking of putting some valuable material out there for you to download. I’ve got no tutorial e-books. However, based on the mentoring I’ve done so far, career coaching is still in high demand, from CV checking to mock interviews (I’ve been on the receiving end as well).

So, I put together a bundle of a CV template and a cover letter. They have been designed for a Product Manager in a 2-pager, so it’s suitable for mid-career professionals who have collected a few years and a range of experience under their belt. The beauty of this template is that it’s super applicable for a non-Product person, too. Even if your career is somewhat on the fence of the tech world, you can still benefit from this template, as the gist and structure are what most employers would like to know.

For those of you who have subscribed, I’ll send it as an email. For new subscribers, it will be sent out immediately as the welcome package (or so I hope, I’m figuring out how to do this). Or, if it’s not automated, I can just send you a direct email, like what I’d do to my previous subscribers.

You can click the Subscribe button below to receive your free bundle of CV and cover letter kit.

If you enjoy this content, have you done the following?

📖 Subscribe to my Medium to elevate your leadership and PM skills

💡Grab your free 30-minute session of 1:1 career or product management coaching

And, let’s get connected on LinkedIn.

Have a gentle and promising start to the new year,