The questions asked (to assess my current and desired situations) allowed me to state out loud the aspects of my profession I love, and the ones I love a bit less. One question in particular stood out: “Would you consider going back to 9-to-5?”. My hunch went: “Hard No, with every fibre of my body!!”.

Flexibly is not a given these days, however common it has become. It is a personal flair (at work, it has to co-live with company policies): night owls shine after dusk, early birds excel at dawn, and the hybrids early owls 🦉like me live at their best at different times depending on the day (and quality of sleep).

It did, however, exposed the sheer difference between my last 5 years (high flexibility), and the previous 5 of my life (low flexibility). It can be translated geographically as well: a difference between my home country (Italy) and other countries I’ve lived in (Germany and New Zealand).

The underlining theme? I was given the choice (autonomy in neuroscience lingo terms). Autonomy has been linked to productivity: the higher the autonomy one has, the more productive they can be.