Back when I was pandemic drinking, it didn’t click that alcohol was causing significant sleep disruptions, and it was the sleep disruption that was making me feel stupider and made it harder to concentrate. This is also a big part of why new parents feel stupider, btw. It’s the sleep deprivation.
My paternal grandfather’s only and best piece of advice passed to my mom and then to me was that when faced with whether to keep working/studying or sleep, choose sleep. Feeling stupid? Studying or training not clicking? Falling behind? Don’t DO more. Work on your sleep routine.
The productivity craze has been detrimental in many ways, but the most ironic one is that it has people going to bed at midnight and getting up at 4am and bragging about it while accumulating sleep debt that’s actually making every single task and project HARDER and more prone to error.
I could sleep six hours and slog through a project in 6 or 8 hours, or sleep my 9 hours (I’m a 9 hours, alas) and get same and better results in 2-3 hours of work instead. I’m hugely productive from about 7am-12pm, and then it’s diminishing returns. By 3pm I’m only good for answering email.
I had a training this week on a complicated new tool at work during a 3-4pm time slot, and was so exhausted and overwhelmed by the whole exercise after day’s stress that I nearly burst into tears. Had to take deep breath and remind myself it would be manageable in a.m. when I was fresh. And it was!
Maybe optimizing our time doesn’t look like we think it does. Maybe we’d be happier LIVING instead of OPTIMIZING.
