Lark or owl? Figure out when you peak



If you are working on a big project or manage a team at work, chances are your calendar and inbox are bombarded by emails, meeting invites and update calls to make.

Nevertheless, it is important to remember that no matter how busy your schedule, you still have control over your time and you need to realise when your most productive hours are.

As part of managing a team, my day is dedicated to meetings, phone calls and multiple projects to supervise and approve. Some days, when I finish work in the evening I do not have enough energy to work on my novel. Thus I postpone working on it to the weekend, when I can dedicate a morning in my home office.

I discussed this issue with a good friend who has been pushing me to complete my novel before the end of the year. I am a morning person, and my energy level is highest early on in the day. She suggested I adjust my daily schedule and wake up an hour earlier than I normally would to work on my novel, when my energy level is highest.

I figured I had nothing to lose, and have tried it for a couple of months so far, dedicating an hour to my novel before going into the office. Doing as she had suggested allows me to focus completely on my book and not feel guilty about not dedicating enough time to it. And I have seen excellent results. Had I realised this earlier, I would have completed my novel months ago.

So, take a minute to reflect back on your energy levels throughout the day. You will probably notice that the person you are in the morning is not the same later in the day. You are either more productive in the morning, or you are a night owl like one of my friends, whose highest energy levels kick in after the clock strikes midnight.

Several medical studies reveal that our brain functions differently throughout the day. My colleagues and friends often complain that their brains are drained after 2pm and therefore postpone completing tasks to the following day. They even wondered why work hours extend to the early evening when most people’s energy drops after lunch.

If you have a lot on your mind and want to get things done, then recognise the hours when you are most productive and block them. Look back at the past week: which times of the day were your most energetic? Chances are this is the same time when you are most productive. Try to block your calendar for those one to two hours to get important tasks of the day done and postpone less important tasks and meetings that do not require as much energy and cognitive thinking to another part of the day.

Blocking high productivity hours in your calendar will allow you to focus on tasks that require your concentration and decision-making abilities. It will also save you from dwelling on the fact you have postponed working on something and how awful that makes you feel.

Dedicating high-energy time to less important matters and postponing important tasks that require your full attention to a time of the day where your energy level is low, is disastrous for the kind of work that requires concentration.

In my case, if I edited a piece of writing towards the end of the day, chances are I will miss several mistakes and typos.

The thing is this, the best way to organise our schedules and calendars is to keep our energy and productivity levels in minds. In my case, my mornings are always blocked for work, whether on weekends or not, and the evenings are dedicated to relaxation and unwinding with family and friends.

It is amazing how altering your daily schedule can help you achieve maximum productivity.

Manar Al Hinai is an award-winning Emirati writer based in Abu Dhabi. Follow her on Twitter: @manar_alhinai

Follow us on Twitter @Ind_Insights

From Zero

Artist: Linkin Park

Label: Warner Records

Number of tracks: 11

Rating: 4/5

Formula Middle East Calendar (Formula Regional and Formula 4)
Round 1: January 17-19, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
 
Round 2: January 22-23, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
 
Round 3: February 7-9, Dubai Autodrome – Dubai
 
Round 4: February 14-16, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
 
Round 5: February 25-27, Jeddah Corniche Circuit – Saudi Arabia
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Iraq negotiating over Iran sanctions impact
  • US sanctions on Iran’s energy industry and exports took effect on Monday, November 5.
  • Washington issued formal waivers to eight buyers of Iranian oil, allowing them to continue limited imports. Iraq did not receive a waiver.
  • Iraq’s government is cooperating with the US to contain Iranian influence in the country, and increased Iraqi oil production is helping to make up for Iranian crude that sanctions are blocking from markets, US officials say.
  • Iraq, the second-biggest producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, pumped last month at a record 4.78 million barrels a day, former Oil Minister Jabbar Al-Luaibi said on Oct. 20. Iraq exported 3.83 million barrels a day last month, according to tanker tracking and data from port agents.
  • Iraq has been working to restore production at its northern Kirkuk oil field. Kirkuk could add 200,000 barrels a day of oil to Iraq’s total output, Hook said.
  • The country stopped trucking Kirkuk oil to Iran about three weeks ago, in line with U.S. sanctions, according to four people with knowledge of the matter who asked not to be identified because they aren’t allowed to speak to media.
  • Oil exports from Iran, OPEC’s third-largest supplier, have slumped since President Donald Trump announced in May that he’d reimpose sanctions. Iran shipped about 1.76 million barrels a day in October out of 3.42 million in total production, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
  • Benchmark Brent crude fell 47 cents to $72.70 a barrel in London trading at 7:26 a.m. local time. U.S. West Texas Intermediate was 25 cents lower at $62.85 a barrel in New York. WTI held near the lowest level in seven months as concerns of a tightening market eased after the U.S. granted its waivers to buyers of Iranian crude.
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Iran's dirty tricks to dodge sanctions

There’s increased scrutiny on the tricks being used to keep commodities flowing to and from blacklisted countries. Here’s a description of how some work.

1 Going Dark

A common method to transport Iranian oil with stealth is to turn off the Automatic Identification System, an electronic device that pinpoints a ship’s location. Known as going dark, a vessel flicks the switch before berthing and typically reappears days later, masking the location of its load or discharge port.

2. Ship-to-Ship Transfers

A first vessel will take its clandestine cargo away from the country in question before transferring it to a waiting ship, all of this happening out of sight. The vessels will then sail in different directions. For about a third of Iranian exports, more than one tanker typically handles a load before it’s delivered to its final destination, analysts say.

3. Fake Destinations

Signaling the wrong destination to load or unload is another technique. Ships that intend to take cargo from Iran may indicate their loading ports in sanction-free places like Iraq. Ships can keep changing their destinations and end up not berthing at any of them.

4. Rebranded Barrels

Iranian barrels can also be rebranded as oil from a nation free from sanctions such as Iraq. The countries share fields along their border and the crude has similar characteristics. Oil from these deposits can be trucked out to another port and documents forged to hide Iran as the origin.

* Bloomberg

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The smuggler

Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple. 
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.

Khouli conviction

Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.

For sale

A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.

- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico

- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000

- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950

RESULTS

Tottenham 1

Jan Vertonghen 13'

Norwich 1

Josip Drmic 78'

2-3 on penalties

Masters%20of%20the%20Air
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FIXTURES

Thu Mar 15 – West Indies v Afghanistan, UAE v Scotland
Fri Mar 16 – Ireland v Zimbabwe
Sun Mar 18 – Ireland v Scotland
Mon Mar 19 – West Indies v Zimbabwe
Tue Mar 20 – UAE v Afghanistan
Wed Mar 21 – West Indies v Scotland
Thu Mar 22 – UAE v Zimbabwe
Fri Mar 23 – Ireland v Afghanistan

The top two teams qualify for the World Cup

Classification matches
The top-placed side out of Papua New Guinea, Hong Kong or Nepal will be granted one-day international status. UAE and Scotland have already won ODI status, having qualified for the Super Six.

Thu Mar 15 – Netherlands v Hong Kong, PNG v Nepal
Sat Mar 17 – 7th-8th place playoff, 9th-10th place playoff

Dubai Bling season three

Cast: Loujain Adada, Zeina Khoury, Farhana Bodi, Ebraheem Al Samadi, Mona Kattan, and couples Safa & Fahad Siddiqui and DJ Bliss & Danya Mohammed 

Rating: 1/5

NO OTHER LAND

Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal

Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham

Rating: 3.5/5

Our legal columnist

Name: Yousef Al Bahar

Advocate at Al Bahar & Associate Advocates and Legal Consultants, established in 1994

Education: Mr Al Bahar was born in 1979 and graduated in 2008 from the Judicial Institute. He took after his father, who was one of the first Emirati lawyers

Key facilities
  • Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
  • Premier League-standard football pitch
  • 400m Olympic running track
  • NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
  • 600-seat auditorium
  • Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
  • An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
  • Specialist robotics and science laboratories
  • AR and VR-enabled learning centres
  • Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills