Sleep and Time

Posted 18 Feb 2006.

Is there a better way to organise your sleep to get more time in your life?

I came across an interesting essay by Steve Pavlina titled How to Become an Early Riser. I haven't had a chance to read Steve's other articles but his works all look interesting. I'm into self development so this site could be very valuable.

I found the article accidentally whilst searching for something else - I bet this is a common way that things are found on the web - the article looked promising. I made a decision to read it on my next break or low motivation period. If someone told me that they could further improve my sleeping/waking cycle I would be very interested so I dived in. Let me outline what I do at the moment before I talk about what Steve recommends and what I ended up doing.

Some background - Our two girls have left home a few years ago - so it is just my wife and I. In my work, apart from meetings with clients, I am more or less free to work whatever hours I wish or have to. I have almost total control over my time schedule. We do not have an alarm clock in the bedroom. We wake up when we wake up.

I am also aware that we sleep in 90 mins cycles. So if I have a nap during the day - I'll tend to sleep for 90 mins or 2 x 90 mins. During my night time sleep I will usually sleep for 3 x 90 mins (4.5 hours) or 4 x 90 mins (6 hours). And if I am really tired I do 5 x 90 mins.

My preferred pattern is to have one main sleep period (4.5 hrs) at night followed by a nap (1.5 hrs) in the afternoon. If I am really tired I will extend one or both by another 90 mins.

My usual day would consist of starting the day at anything around 8:30 to 10:30. It depends on when I get to sleep. On waking I would go directly to work (our main offices are on our property). I would normally work for a WOI period - more on what a WOI is later - and then have break. One more WOI and it is lunch time. This is usually around 13:00-14:00 hours. Then another one or two WOIs before 17:30 in the afternoon.

17:30 is time for a major break. If I have a nap, now is the time. I usually start again at around 20:00 - 21:00 hours. This enters my major work time between 22:00 and 02:00.

Under this regime, I get 5 or 6 WOI periods per 24 hours. This is very productive.

Upon reading the article by Steve I though his idea was brilliant. It sounded great on paper. It was basically this - get up at the same time every day - say 05:00. When you go to sleep is determined by when you are sleepy. When sleepy, go to sleep, but always get up at the same time - 7 days a week.

This is what I did. I kept a journal over the four days I tried it. The reason I stopped so quickly is that there was strong evidence that this was not going to work - for me at least.

The reasons for stopping are important:

• Getting up at 5:00 am did not guarantee 4 hours of work before 9:00. Sometimes my wife would wake up earlier and we would end up having breakfast together. Whereas, if I work from 22:00 to 2:00 I can fairly well have the time to myself.
• It did not take into account my 90 min sleep cycles.
• I just seemed more alert late at night rather than early in the morning.
• I seem to have an ebb and flow to my energy during the week. Some days are more powerful than others. To lock in a wake time prevents this ebb and flow. I cannot explain why but I just know that this is correct.
• Going to bed at 22:00 or 23:00 hrs upsets our households schedule.
• If I shift the wake up time to 8:30 or 9:00 I would not be able to maintain this during early morning flight times when travelling interstate or for breakfast meetings.

The reason I am writing about it is that it may be the perfect thing for you. Read the whole article and see how you go. Of course, you may be already be locked into such a cycle by the demands of children, jobs or people around you and if so you are probably already operating at maximum efficiency. This article won't apply to you.

Conclusion on the 18 Feb 2006

It is interesting that now I have written this up I am realising that I might be able to make 8:00 the fixed waking time and set the sleep time to 02:00. When I travel, I could sleep on the flight and wake at 8:00 (during the flight) or something like that. It would mean more discipline about having coffee at airports (I love having coffee at airports and whilst in the air). Breakfast meetings could be switched to lunches - why not. I might give this another try. Today is the 18 Feb 2006. It is now around 1:30, so I could try today - go to sleep at 2:00 and up at 8:00. I'll see how this goes.

Conclusion on the 25 Feb 2006

It works. The rules break down into the following:

1. Get up at 08:00 AM.
2. Do not stay up after 02:00 AM.
3. If I feel sleepy at 11:00 PM or 12:30 AM use that as the marker to go to sleep.

At times I thought this exercise might have been a waste of time but it wasn't. This fits into my lifestyle and yet give me maximum alertness during my day.

I was also surprised with what came out of keeping a sleep log - it showed to me that I do need between 6 and 7.5 hours of sleep a day. If you had asked me prior to this exercise I would have said less. But I would have been wrong. I have been making decisions as to when to go to sleep and when to wake up based on incorrect information.

End of exercise. Mission accomplished.

What is a WOI?

A WOI stands for a significant amount of time with no interruptions - With Out Interruptions. It is usually 1-2 hours in length. The reason for this time period is that it allows a sufficiently long period of time to actually get something done.

The lack of interruptions is critical as it allows time to upload all the various issues into your brain and get into the zone - the flow - the period of time when time does not exist - you lose yourself in what you are doing. The reason why you need to stop after 1-2 hours is that it allows time for your body to have a break, make phone calls, leave to go to a meeting and so on.

The idea of a WOI came to me during reading a landmark book by Tom Demarco and Timothy Lister titled Peopleware : Productive Projects and Teams. In this book the two authors discussed the important concept of having a place to work and concentrate without interruptions. It explained why people came to workplaces early or finished late - they just wanted to get some space to get stuff done. Most of my client workplaces do not provide the correct conditions for even one WOI let alone 3 or 4. You know when you haven't even had a single WOI when you catch yourself saying - I did not get anything done today.

Sleep Journal Notes

Day 1 Experiences
Day 2 Experiences
Day 3 Experiences
Day 4 Experiences

Sleep Journal Notes - Try 2

Try 2 - Day 1 Experiences
Try 2 - Day 2 Experiences
Try 2 - Day 3 Experiences
Try 2 - Day 4 Experiences
Try 2 - Day 5 Experiences
Try 2 - Day 6 Experiences
Try 2 - Day 7 Experiences