Forgoing sleep is like borrowing from a loan shark. Sure you get that extra hours right now to cover for your overly-optimistic estimation, but at what price? The shark will be back and if you can’t pay, he’ll break your creativity, morale, and good-mannered nature as virtue twigs.
Now we all borrow occasionally and that’s okay if you fully understand the consequences and don’t make it a habit. I did that the other night. We pushed an update to OpenBar, which had me working until 1:30 AM. That wouldn’t have been so bad if it wasn’t because I got woken up at 5 AM to help deal with an issue that arose. But the costs the following day were typical, numerable, and expensive:
- Stubbornness: When I’m really tired, it always seems easier to plow down whatever bad path I happen to be on instead of reconsidering the route. The finish line is a constant mirage and I’ll be walking in the desert for much longer than was ever a good idea.
- Lack of creativity: What separates programmers who are 10x more effective than the norm is not that they write 10x as many lines of code. It’s that they use their creativity to solve the problem with 1/10th of the effort. The creativity to come up with those 1/10th solutions drops drastically when I’m tired.
- Diminished morale: When my brain isn’t firing on all cylinders, it loves to feed on less demanding tasks. Like reading my RSS feeds for the 5th time today or reading yet another article about stuff that doesn’t matter. My motivation to attack the problems of real importance is not nearly up to par.
- Irritability: If you encounter someone who’s acting like an ass, there’s a good chance they’re suffering from sleep deprivation. Your ability to remain patient and tolerant is severely impacted when you’re tired. I know I’m at my worst when sleep deprived.
These are just some of the costs you incur when not getting enough sleep. None of them are desirable. Yet somehow it seems that the tech industry has developed a masochistic sense of honor about sleep deprivation. At times it sounds like bragging rights. People trying to top each other. For what? To seem so important, so in need, so desired that humanity requires you to sacrifice? Chances are you’re not that special, not that needed, and the job at hand not that urgent.
Software development is rarely a sprint, it’s a marathon. It’s multiple marathons, actually. So trying to extract 110% performance from today when it means having only 70% performance available tomorrow is a bad deal. You end up with just 77% of your available peak. What a bad trade.
This is why I’ve always tried to get about 8 1/2 hours of sleep. That seems to be the best way for me to get access to peak mental performance. You might well require less (or more), but to think you can do with 6 hours or less is probably an illusion. Worse, it’s an illusion you’ll have a hard time bursting. Sleep-deprived people often vastly underestimate the impact on their abilities, studies have shown.
So get more sleep. Stop bragging about how little you got. Make your peak mental capacity accessible.
matt
on 01 May 08sp dhh:
deprivation (probably) ... and not depravation either…(although it could be evil)
paul
on 01 May 08We have after hours on-call at work, and sometimes you’ll be contacted and asked to join a conference call at, say, 4am to deal with some issue. When that happens I always come in a bit later the following morning (rather than the usual 8.30am). When I get in there’s always people there from the conference call, going on about “where was I at 8.30 ?” as they were in “on time”. I always think it’s strange as they’re obviously knackered and just in to prove that they can be. Presenteeism I think they call it….
Winfield
on 01 May 08People often fail to recognize the relationship between lack of sleep and design debt, that you have to be at your peak performance to get the best decisions. Otherwise you’re even more inclined to miss an elegant simplification or settle for a hack.
Joshua Go
on 01 May 08Amen, David. Amen.
I think most people ignore the advice about sleep because the traditional advice is so trite and oft-repeated by people who really know what’s going on and who have benefited from a good night’s sleep.
I would venture to say that a large part of a creative superstar’s competitive advantage is due to the ability to step back, think really deeply, and question assumptions about ideas that others take for granted.
I’ve got well-meaning, ambitious friends who are earnest in trying to improve their abilities and their performance, They try all sorts of remedies and enhancements - which are great - like reading up on things they don’t know or “pushing through” their tiredness, but I think the root of the problem is really that they don’t get enough sleep.
(I saw this often in college. The effects in an academic environment are probably more pronounced, since creativity and constant absorption of new material is required in many classes, whereas people can get away with it in most workplaces, cranking out the same thing day after day.)
Sleep is so basic and foundational. Your loan shark analogy is particularly apt; crushing interest rates make the debt even bigger. In the same way it appears to me that a constant lack of sleep makes it very difficult for people to step outside themselves and even realize the detrimental effects of sleep deprivation.
jim
on 01 May 08If you want to see long term effects, talk to someone who has untreated sleep apnea. I can tell you from personal experience with it that over time you short term memory goes to shit, you can’t recall words, and productivity is always in the shitter. Prior to treatment on bad nights I would be lucky to get 3 or 4 hours of good solid work done.
Daniel Haran
on 01 May 08Sleep deprivation also seems to affect your math skills. 77% can only be had if you take 110% of 70%. (110 + 70) / 2 => 90. Although, I think it’s far smaller in reality. Not sleeping is really toxic, and is especially visible in the number of accidents after time changes.
Joe Sak
on 01 May 08David, how is it that almost every post you make is perfectly timed with the frustrations and observations I have made about my own company?
Thanks for being a voice of reason and inspiration to the rest of us.
By the way, I loved your presentation about Start-ups and the fortune 5,000,000
Jake
on 01 May 08Good point David. There is always that one person that has to be martyr to late nights and let the world know (i.e. e-mail to boss about some minor issue at 1AM).
Kenzie Campbell
on 01 May 08You forgot to mention an exception for the playoffs. A West coast game heading into double overtime trumps sleep every time. A win will offset any negative effects the next day, but a loss can increase irritability exponentially.
Greg Kops
on 01 May 08Thank you, David! Such important insight coming from a well respected individual in the software development community. This is a discussion that I think we need to hear more of – like an all-nighters-anonymous group or something.
I really do think that there is an element of addiction to software development – in search of that high that we all get from finally ‘making it work.’ I so regret the years I spent watching the sun come up while banging out code in my home office only to pass out at 6:00 the next evening on the couch while ‘playing’ with my two daughters in the living room. There was no glory in that moment…
This is something I think about a lot now that I am supposedly older and wiser. I understand that many of us define ourselves by our work, but sometimes that comes at the expense of our ability to be ourselves and live in the real world. I mean, in the end, if your website rocks, but you’re an asshole to your friends and family, who are you anyway?
dave
on 01 May 08Couldn’t agree more.
Jijnes Patel
on 01 May 08I see this all the time at my job, and I have fallen into the trap myself. If for some reason I need to stay up, I try to break the day up with small 15 minute breaks where I don’t focus on any work. This helps reset my focus and gives my brain a break.
Splashman
on 01 May 08I’ll confess: I’m one of those who used to be so proud of my ability to work 60 hours straight to meet a deadline. Gawd.
David’s right: in general, the ‘need’ to work long hours reflects poor planning and/or priorities. And defending regular long hours as dedication or drive sounds more pitiful the longer I live.
Matt Turner
on 01 May 08‘Nuff Said!
I did a short seasonal stint at a place that gave out t-shirts to employees (primarily web developers) that stayed on overnight to finish something. The 24 hour club it was called.
As far as I could tell these usually happened towards the end of projects and were usually the result of diving into project development without thoroughly planning at the beginning of the development stage.
Brennan
on 01 May 08Couldn’t agree more. I saw it in college both as someone training for sports (people diet hard and work out hard, and then don’t sleep enough…..never made sense to me. Sleeping is the easiest part!) and in academics (people who slept half as much as me would have to study twice as hard to retain information), and now I see it in the workplace as people sleep 6 or 7 hours a night and have a serious caffeine addiction (my friend found out how much caffeine was in coffee and tried to go off, he found himself depressed, irritable and couldn’t focus well).
60 minutes recently did a long piece on the new studies that have been done sleep deprivation and deep sleep deprivation, and if you see it and aren’t scared into 8 hours of sleep a night, I don’t know what will do it.
Brendon
on 01 May 08Not to mention one study suggests that sleep depravation can impact judgement and other facilities in ways similar to alcohol intoxication.
Jake Jacobsen
on 01 May 08Excellent post David!
A big part of the problem is that people try to hide the sleep deprivation with caffeine. Caffeine is a drug that makes people feel like they are not tired, but it does not make them less tired. At least when people feel tired they know they aren’t functioning as well.
It’s like how morphine makes people feel like they aren’t injured, but if try to go about their day as normal because they don’t feel any pain they are only going to injure themselves more.
I took a class on they physiological effects of drugs in college and my professor summed up the section on caffeine: “Caffeine makes people do more dumb things faster.” It is much better to just get the rest your body needs.
Justin D-Z
on 01 May 08Quick Openbar question. I love the feature, although the ical calendar in my Outlook from my Basecamp account wouldn’t authenticate by username and password after I switched to OpenID. How do I authenticate for the calendar, or is that feature not compatible with Outlook when you use OpenID?
Thanks. Making Clickpass more useful :-)
DHH
on 01 May 08Justin, go to your My Info page. There’s a special username and password to use with RSS, iCal, and the API.
Justin D-Z
on 01 May 08Rock on, thanks!
DHH
on 01 May 08Jake, couldn’t agree more. That’s why I don’t drink any form of caffeinated beverages any more. I want to be as much in tune with the effects on my brain as possible.
shkhan
on 01 May 08I agree with you in theory but cant imagine not putting in the extra hours in any situation that requires it. My new measure, that dawned on me at 3 AM last night was that its okay to kill yourself if you’re actually acomplishing something but if you are killing yourself at a for producing sleep-deprived-rubbish, then its just stupid.
Doug Neiner
on 01 May 08Everything you said is true, but I still make a point of “dropping” a hint of how late I stayed up…. I stay up late because I overcommitted myself, but once I have done that a few times… I am so tired everything I do takes longer and I am not that motivated to do it… so I stay up later to get it done.
Stupid!
This article may be just what I need to kick that bad habit. Thanks David.
Adam
on 01 May 08Loan sharks are an apt comparison.
The “badge of honor” is nothing new:
“Six hours sleep for a man, seven for a woman and eight for a fool.” - Napoleon Bonaparte
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Napoleon_Bonaparte
Beamer
on 01 May 08I’m on a polyphasic sleep schedule. Everyman to be exact. 3 hour “core” nap, and three 20 minute naps.
There’s some adverse reactions – mainly the ones you listed. But I can’t believe sometimes how much work I’ll crank through in a 20 hour workday. Especially when you have a 2 month milestone for a beta release, and you complete it in 2 weeks. Hello vacation!
I agree with you, but I guess I fall into that “underestimate” category :)
rektide
on 01 May 08four to seven hours of sleep gives me an edginess that keeps me far more on task. if i get more sleep my mind tends to wander through the day.
my general opinion of coders though is that if they dont occasionally burn the mid night oil they’re not engaged in interesting enough projects. i cant name a single friend who hasnt looked up from Civilization to find to their horror that its now 3:48 AM, and I expect the same sort of obsessive interaction from anyone that takes coding seriously.
Carl
on 01 May 08Margaret Thatcher, Napoleon etc survived on 4 hours sleep ;)
Where I work, if you do have to stay late (which is only ever if something critical is broken) you get the next day off to catch up with your sleep. Makes sense to me.
Douglas Squirrel
on 01 May 08An entertaining and related story from consulting days long past: Pizza Box Management
Adam
on 01 May 08@Carl, I like that rule. It forces you to ask “is this __ important enough that we’re willing to let this guy stay home tomorrow”.
Now is it that important?
Jonas Gorauskas
on 01 May 08I work in IT and I rarely work late, except for when I am on-call, which happens for one weekend every two months. Yet, I am sleep deprived: I have three children under the age of three. And I don’t brag about it. Great post, nonetheless.
Greg
on 01 May 08One danger of constantly burning your reserves is what do you fall back on when something truly important comes along?
Mike
on 01 May 08Sleep deprivation is in fact a badge of honor, especially if you are working on something really exciting. The good programmers aren’t solving trivial problems (like managing projects). They stay up all night to work on problems nobody has solved before. More idiotic drivel from an awfully overrated company.
MI
on 01 May 08Mike, you sound cranky. You might want to think about a nap.
codist
on 01 May 08I always try to take a nap when I get home, especially if I didn’t get the full sleep the night before. I once spent 4 months working 110 hour weeks finishing a complete rewrite of the UI for an application for my own company. Never again!
Nikolaj
on 01 May 08So many companies pride themselves on working programmers into late night hours, but the code that comes out of that is rarely good. Quite frankly, good programmers are lazy programmers.. its that very laziness that makes us “program” things, not repeatedly do them (ahem, copy and paste code is emblematic of bad programming). Good Post
Ben
on 01 May 08So good. SO GOOD.
David, your posts lately have been DAT HOT FIYAH!
Robert 'Groby' Blum
on 01 May 08I agree that sleep deprivation is bad – but tying it to a specific number of hours is just not making sense. Different people have different sleep requirements.
What worked well for me was picking a fixed hour to go to bed (11pm), and not setting an alarm. The theory being that I’d wake up once I’ve had enough sleep. So far, I can’t complain, and I’m living with 6 hours – without any of the negative effects.
Some days, it’s 9 hours instead. Listen to your body, don’t force it in a specific pattern. (Hm. Based on that, my fixed 11pm is probably not a good idea either. I need to work for a sleep lab ;)
Grant
on 01 May 08I think the creative industry suffers from this badge of honor as well – what’s worse is often in web design/development you’re basically working for both industries – haha – and neither honors personal time or space very well.
Ratchetcat
on 01 May 08Mike, if you think you’re working on ‘problems nobody has ever solved before’, you are almost certainly working on a problem someone has solved before.
Get some bunk time, champ!
DHH
on 01 May 08Robert, I certainly agree to that. Different people need different amounts of sleep. I’d just comment that if you’re using coffee or other caffein agents that your body may well be lying to you as to whether you’re getting enough sleep.
Ivory
on 01 May 08Great article, David. Getting enough sleep is usually the cure to a host of ailments.
NewWorldOrder
on 01 May 08I haven’t seen any research on this, but I would conjecture that there’s probably some correlation between people who “dislike/hate” their jobs and people who don’t get enough sleep…
Sean
on 01 May 08@David
When did you stop drinking caffeine, and what changes did you notice after the decision? Did some caffeine-related side-effects only become apparent after you stopped drinking it?
DHH
on 01 May 08Sean, I was never into coffee, but I used to drink 1.5L of Coke every day a few years back. It was definitely an addiction of the “can’t really work unless I have it” kind.
Quitting it meant longer periods of energy rather than bursts and a much better sensitivity to whether I had enough sleep or not.
Mike
on 01 May 08We have a 7 week-old baby at home, and I think kids are the exception to this rule. Pre-baby my wife and I would get 8 hours of sleep every night, post baby it’s 3 to 6 hours. You learn to deal with it, and what’s lost in sleep is made up for w/ a growing heart.
Jonathan
on 01 May 08Letting people work that hours that they want goes a long way. I’m often sleep deprived because I have trouble getting to sleep. As a result, I’m cranky and unproductive. If I were to sleep in until 10 and then work 12-8, I’d get much more done.
Jonathan
on 01 May 08Well, sometimes you don’t have to be creative. Sometimes, you just need to get the grunt work done before the deadline wooshes by. Everybody worth their salt knows that they’re more productive after having just slept (and when your Internet connection is down), but being productive after the deadline has hit isn’t anything to be bragging about either.
DHH
on 01 May 08Jonathan, that’s about the hours I worked while in Denmark.
Jonathan
on 01 May 08Those aren’t the same Jonathans by the way. ;-)
binge drinker
on 01 May 08BZP is still legal in New Zealand (don’t ask why).
Ha! just kidding but it wouldn’t surprise me if someone dug themselves deeper into their own hole this way.
Mark Harrison
on 01 May 08One of the best things about working for my own company is that I can set my own hours.
I like to take the kids to school, and spend time with them in the morning before, so I tend to get up about 7am, but seldom start work before about 10am, and tend to work for a couple of hours with the phone off.
At midday, I often have a 20-30 minute “siesta” – I won’t call it a “power nap”, because that has overtones of “drive” – I like the word “siesta” because of the image of a slightly more relaxed attitude to work / life balance.
I then tend to work from about 1pm till 3pm, with the phone on … at 3pm they are both home from school, so more family time.
Evenings are often work again – 7-10.
... total 7 hours work in the day, but sorted out so different tasks are done at different times to take account of when I’m at my best.
The routine doesn’t always work – I have the odd contract where they want me to spend a day at their office, typically once a month (non-exec Directorships and the like.)
But the key thing I’ve done over the last 3 years is “groom” my clients to realise that:
A: They can’t phone me at any time and get a reply (or, if they want that service, then there’s a high cost premium to it.)
B: I will check my email once a week UNLESS they text me to let me know there is something important awaiting me, in which case, I’ll check daily.
Alas, I’ve never worked in a company which allowed that kind of flexibility… but I can find clients who are interested in paying for results rather than paying for time…
Frankly, my websites do a lot of the heavy lifting of marketing, question-answering, and order-taking… I just get involved once a day to make sure that shipping happens :-)
Robert 'Groby' Blum
on 01 May 08@dhh: Quite caffeine mostly. It’s reserved as an emergency drug when I really need that extra time. It carries you through one long night without problems – but I pay for it with about a week of diminished efficiency and distorted sleep patterns.
Javier[EmaStudios]
on 01 May 08It’s a good post and it takes to a nice discussion but, I had to navigate through the whole ass licking / I want your baby / you are my hero / could you spit on my mouth please? – comments to get some really interesting opinions regarding the post.
This is one of the good comments: That’s have to lead somewhere. I’m looking right now if there is something around that…MMmm I believe the guys at Pixar used to sleep at their offices… but anyway, who cares. I would just say: “do whatever makes you happy and get your work done” and won’t jump on the “you’re SO stupid for thinking that, how funny you are!” wagon he he he.
I believe it has to do with life. With quality of life. Sometimes I feel like my day is just too short; not enough hours for all the things I do and I want to keep doing; sometimes sleeping just “gets in the way” and, due we pass most of our lives sleeping, it’s actually pretty natural we want to stay awake as much as we can to do as many things as we can.
Javier
Kevin Milden
on 01 May 08Sleep when you feel tired. Eat when you feel hungry. Make something when you feel creative. It is your life and you can choose how productive you want to be and when. There are a ton of full time sleepers out there that never get anything done. With all the distractions at work it is hard to believe people expect creativity is supposed to happen in a controlled environment between the hours of 9am-6pm. Those are 20th century work habits that are obsolete.
Sam
on 01 May 08I make an effort to get a health amount of sleep nowadays. I once had to work for 63 hours straight years ago. Wild stuff. I don’t plan on ever doing that again.
I find that waking up at the “right” time is more important than reaching a fixed number of hours of sleep, though.
I should pick up that SleepTracker watch (covered previously on SvN). Are you still satisfied with it, Jason?
Dee Dee Ramone
on 01 May 08Reminds me of when I was this young and naive. Just wait till you have kids!
Marko
on 01 May 08That’s it! I’m going to bed!
Tom
on 01 May 08I find it amusing I am reading this after midnight! After just having attempted to remove a minor bug in a system… and failing! Bed time indeed me thinks!
ben
on 01 May 08I must say, you my friend are pretty amatuer.
1:30-5AM? Try doing that every day, not because you have to but becuase you want to.
These side effects you speak of rest of trite pseudo-science. Most people get more creative, some don’t like you. Some can’t handle not sleeping, and some can.
The real problem is that our society runs on a 9-5 schedule rather then an 11-9 or something like that. Most studies have shown that younger people function between between 12am-3am and the 9-5 world is worse on us, especially since we aren’t agrarian anymore.
Makes me glad that people in Japan, Seoul, Beijing, San Fran, Dallas, NYC, etc. all live the night life and don’t nub out like you. Boo Hoo.
Tom G.
on 01 May 08I’ve observed that people who chronically sleep deprive themselves have difficulty making decisions.
I’ve had to order employees to not work extra hours and get good sleep and demand a regular schedule. Having done this I’ve observed remarkable improvements in productivity as well as attitude and health.
I’ve also read research that not getting enough sleep shortens your life span and decreases your cogitive capacity. The same thing goes for schedule of sleep; following your circadian rhythm with uninterrupted sleep is important. Claims that some people need less sleep fly in the face of large amounts of objective scientific research; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep#Optimal_amount_in_humans
Joe Frankenson
on 02 May 08That would explain why I’m starting to feel like an idiot. For the last few months I’ve been getting less than sufficient sleep, and as a result, I’ve been feeling like crap, and I’ve often caught myself saying something opposite to what I was trying to say. I’m gonna start sleeping more, for sure!
Anil Wadghule
on 02 May 08I really agree with your post.
Anonymous Coward
on 02 May 08to sum up:
I’m doing it wrong.
not news, but a good reminder.
Brad Hurlbert
on 02 May 08I used to have trouble sleeping. I used to take ambien but that stuff just made my sleep problems worse.
I found this Dr in Boulder Colorado USA who has a 4 CD program you can get online.
It changed my life. It has 100% lifetime guarantee, that’s why I bought it. I heard Sealy matress is going to start selling this through their stores.
You can find it online here: Sleep Program Reviews
Elmore James
on 02 May 08If I didn’t waste so much time during the day I wouldn’t have to stay up all night to get what I need to get done (and really truly enjoy doing), done.
Devan
on 02 May 08Along a similar line, is food deprivation. I have colleagues who routinely brag about missing breakfast because they came in early, or working through lunch to meet a deadline.
This is equally as damaging as sleep deprivation in my view – your body needs nourishment and rest to perform at peak, so pushing yourself hard and not keeping up a regular intake of sustenance is plain crazy.
I think it is high time we looked at ‘high pressure’ industries such as software development, graphic design etc. and slap a few people around to get them to look after ‘numero uno’ so that they can do their best work.
Better go…I hear my sandwich and my pillow calling me…
Dusty
on 02 May 08The average performance is (110% + 70%) / 2 = 90%. Since the peak performance is actually 110% the performance would be 90% / 110% of the available peak, so about 81.8%
Actually, taking hours into account, if the developer works 12 hours one day at 110%, and then only 4 hours the next day at 70%, it would be the same as working 100% both days (which is about 90.9% of the developer’s peak performance.)
PS: I’ve been working for 13+ hours.
James
on 02 May 08Sometimes I think the only people more proud of their ability to function without sleep than startup people are film people.
A guy once told me a story about how he worked as P.A. on a commercial shoot in Maine – drove 3 hours back to Boston to go his day job, went back up to Maine and worked all night again, drove back down to Boston for his day job, drove back up to Maine to work all night again, became violently ill, continued working, drove back down to Boston for his day job puking the entire ride and blasting himself with the air-conditioning to stay awake, drove back up to Maine to work another night, drove back down in a semi-psychotic state, still throwing up in the car… and went to his day job again.
I know there’s some really dedicated people working in production and 12+ hour days are the norm but as he was telling the story, all I could think was that what he did was probably dangerous to himself and anyone who shared the road with him.
Another example of sleep deprivation gone bad was a 10 day + night film shoot in Sweden in which nobody got more than hour of sleep each night—if they were lucky. Half the crew flew over from America and a few days into the shooting, the director literally started falling asleep on set and could no longer do his job. Everyone else had compensate for this and finish shooting without him. His health was wrecked for an entire month afterward. Not pretty.
Take from this what you will.
UpToo LateAgain
on 02 May 08Anyone experienced weight gain associated with sleep dep?
anon
on 02 May 08USA Today news – lot of Americans are driving sleep deprived. result is relatively high accident rate.
Long periods of boredom punctuated by moments of terror.
Best places to monitor are: system administrators and electric power plant operators. including those high tech nuclear. sleepy is OK for routine tasks. training and repetition. for new and creative items, sleep deprivation adversely affects. simple test. after 2 day marathon session write a new ‘poem’ or computer program. go back to it after six months. Does IT LOOK LIKE GARBAGE/ or a new Leonardo Da Vinci masterpiece?
Cory O'Brien
on 02 May 08Unfortunately having a real job and a blog means that I don’t exactly get the optimal amount of sleep every night, but I do notice after a while that I’m not at my peak performance. Thus, I end up trying to catch up during the weekends. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t, but eventually your body just forces a reboot. Now if we could just get the world to spin a little slower so that we all had 25 hour days…
Tim Daly
on 02 May 08It is 2am here and I’m cooking along at a furious rate. I haven’t been to bed before 3am for a couple weeks. However, I get up at 11am, don’t get a thing done before 2pm except “warming up the brains surfing” and then I start working with a break for dinner.
I work from home. It gets deadly quite around 10pm and those 5 hours from 10pm to 3am are exceptionally productive. I get 10-12 hours of productive work a day. And I tend to work weekends because I LIKE what I do.
I don’t “borrow” time. I just optimize my schedule for when I can be very productive. Brains aren’t rocks. You can’t push them. But you can choose the conditions so they roll easily.
Do you let your people work from home? Do you give them “mission orders” or do you “manage” them? Hire people who get things done. Give them a goal. Leave them alone.
Tim
James Zhuo
on 02 May 08Great post! I’ve only figured this out recently myself, instead of trying to force myself to get up early, I just sleep till I feel that I have enough sleep and the rest of the day usually end up a lot more productive. Now I just have to figure out how to stop sleeping late. Any tips would be great (sounds as though you are sleeping before 12).
MIchael
on 02 May 08Thanks for your article, you said true. This junior math student could not but wonder how:
100% today+ 70% tomorrow
= 77%
Because:
100 + 70 = 180
180 / 2 = 90
To bed with me.
Paul Montwill
on 02 May 08Hi Dave, Thanks for reminding. It is hard to balance sleep and activity when you have 9to5 and your own business, but it is worth trying.
Great presentation on Startup. You rock (I wrote about it on my blog)!
Paul Montwill
on 02 May 08@Michael: 100+70 is… 170. You see how easy it is to make a mistake.
Cormac
on 02 May 08Drew
on 02 May 08Funny how we don’t make as much of a badge of honor about not taking a dump. Imagine the discussion in the morning:
“Hey, Joe, dropped a steamer yet? I’m on 3 days and counting and man am I feeling productive without those bathroom breaks. The ibuprofen hasn’t kicked in yet, so I’m still a little slow from the pain, y’know, I’ll be revved up in a few minutes.”
“Geez, no, y’know I thought I could make 5 days, was really hardcore coding, had the butt plug in, was eating nothing but cheese to keep it real. Man, I was handling the pain and irritability, lack of focus, y’know, just zoning out with my code-fu, but it just snuck up on me at this morning. Yeah, dude, dump at the keyboard.”
“Oh man, you’re such a lightweight, dude. Less than 5 days? Some folks just can’t handle pressure.”
Your body needs what it needs. Why we think sleep is any less of a necessary biological function, I can’t imagine. Well, actually I can. It’s because of all the systems in our body, we understand the brain least. Something being “all in your head” is generally dismissive, rather than diagnostic.
Thanks for the posts, guys. You probably won’t be heard by most of the folks who really need the message, but it’s good to hear successful developers saying this stuff publicly. Maybe it will contribute in some small way to the cultural shift towards empowering folks to not sacrifice their own physical and mental health.
Christopher
on 02 May 08As an official representative of the IINDM (International Institute of Not Doing Much), all of us at SlowDownNow.org (the almost serious antidote to workaholism) value sleep to such an extent we take at least two naps a day. Now, too much sleep, well, makes you sleepy. But we humans are not machines. We need rest, relaxation, and renewal.
On a more serious note: Check out sleep researcher, William Dement’s book: The Promise of Sleep which explores the vital connection between health, happiness and a good night’s sleep.
Dement’s colleagues got some Harvard ( I believe) graduates to get an extra one-and-a-half hours sleep. All objected that they didn’t have time, but the study found that when they did get the extra sleep their grades improved.
As for all this stuff about leaders getting little sleep, they napped often so their sleep debt was kept in check. Stalin kept the light on in his office but it was unlikely he was there working.
Serge Lescouarnec
on 02 May 08David
Great reminder
I am guilty of sleep shortage during the week.
Went looking for more details on the problem and quoted those found at Better Health Channel on Serge the Concierge .
Merci
Serge
Brian
on 02 May 08You’ve hit the nail on the head. I see the same shortcomings in my behavior. I’ll add three more:
Indecisiveness Any critical decision that comes up throws me into a helpless crisis of flailing back and forth.
Low Tolerance for Stress If anything blows up, I deal poorly with the stress; usually getting angry but also sometimes procrastinating or even occasionally giving up.
Reduced Discipline I tend to bag any good habits I’m trying to reinforce, such as eating correctly. I’ll shove anything in my mouth to try to get energy to keep going.
Bradley
on 02 May 08So – how am I supposed to provide my job with 40 hours AND everything that needs to be done at home? (Father 4 kids, laundry, dishes, grocery shopping, etc?)
When something extra comes up – it’s comes right out of sleep.
Kari Buttons
on 02 May 08A clever and excellent article. Your title should be a t-shirt!
Alice
on 02 May 08But that’s what Provigil is for.
Spin
on 03 May 08I can relate to this article…in a big way. I started taking amphetamines to help me focus on work and for the first couple of years everything was fine. I then found myself taking more and more until I would go for days without sleep. My record is 6 days (or 5 nights) without as much as a nap and I can attest to all the symptoms you mentioned. The one symptom that stands out for me was that I became an emotional basket case. I started bawling at one point for no reason. Also, my joints became screwed up and my back started killing me, and I started seeing and hearing things that weren’t there. Now days, I never miss any sleep and I’m in great shape, both mentally and physically.
Justin
on 03 May 08Great post. I don’t dare touch my software when I’m sleep deprived. On the rare occasions that I have to, I often think at the end of the day of how much better the code would be if I was at 100% mental performance.
UpToo LateAgain
on 03 May 08@Bradley: I’m sorry, but I don’t think there’s an easy solution for you. It’s going to have to be, (A) try to help your spouse to be more understanding regarding your time constraints, (B) learn to manage your time even better than you are now, (C) try to almost never give your job more than 40 hours, and (D) take sleep time seriously; when you get in bed, no reading, thinking, or anything—just focus on defocusing and getting to sleep.
The kids will eventually start sleeping through the night, and slowly you’ll be able to get some time back.
@Spin: Wow. And I thought I was bad. Glad to hear you’re recovered.
Spin
on 03 May 08Thanks man. I just wanted to clarify that I was taking Adderall that was prescribed to me by a doctor. I made it sound like I was some druggy…which I guess I turned into but didn’t start out that way. Keep up the great articles!
grovberg
on 05 May 08I laughed out loud at this because this is exactly why I’m reading SvN right now. I only got a couple hours sleep and now every time I try to do something, I loose focus and start trolling about for something less taxing to do.
Maybe we’re all just getting old.
Harpo
on 06 May 08David, I think you are right on as well. I hear folks posting about how important the project is and how exciting the project is, I never feel like I’m limited to the projects I’m given. Sounds like these people are starved and limited by what their master feeds them while I’m gorged and feel obligated to fill in any emptiness I might have with things I want to do rather only than what I’m assigned. Not every project I get is exciting but having the ability to be innovative and assign myself tasks that apply directly to my primary workplace or elsewhere is key. I have also been staying up way to late and I think it has caused many of my ailments which include heart palpitations, broken blood vessels in my face, not healing as quickly as I should when injured and short term memory loss etc. I recently read a great book that has been out for a while that helped me put my priorities in focus. It’s called “Don’t sweat the small stuff.” and it’s all small stuff… I urge everyone to take a gander. Being a dad, husband, volunteer and a very hard worker, I had to reevaluate what I was spending my time doing. In a nutshell I would say the big lesson is, my inbox will always be full and when I’m dead none of this crap will matter. The other thing to consider is why??? I think a lot of geeks will over-compensate thinking that they will prove themselves and it will make a huge difference down the road if they churn it out quicker. What are these overachievers really trying to do? My guess is they are very insecure and possibly scared to death they will lose their job or be humiliated if the miss the unreasonable mark they have set for themselves…. What great reasons to work… In my experience, 99% of this motivation to kill yourself is unfounded and the person doing it just needs to know they will okay if they put things in perspective and slow down a bit and look within themselves.
ceccil
on 06 May 08Read in your manifesto you’re big Nabokov fans.
Nabokov hated the idea of wasting time sleeping while there’s so much to do (writing, chasing and studying butterflies, translating from russian to english or french and back, solving chess problems …). He only slept 4 hours a night.
It didn’t really seem to affect his genius mind.
Michael Pollan
on 06 May 08About the 1.5L of Coke habit…. how do you know it was caffeine that was bothering you? Maybe it was the high-fructose corn-syrup raising your insulin levels and doing a number on your internal state?
Erik
on 07 May 08“Stop bragging about how little you got.”
Indeed. Bragging about coming to work hungover isn’t going to get you any points, so I don’t understand why some people seem to think the revelation that they’re sleep deprived is going to win them plaudits.
Sure, Napoleon was famous for needing only minimal sleep. Nabokov was a restless genius who only slept 4 hours a night. Yes, we all have different sleep requirements, and those requirements change as we move through life (I still remember how bitterly I hated my first period class in high school). But the results of chronic sleep deprivation are obvious and beyond argument. Consistent lack of sleep will mess you up.
There’s a reason the army uses sleep deprivation in training situations. It’s an excellent means of putting soldiers into an agitated, nervous, emotional state. Make a soldier march all day in the blazing sun. Don’t give him any food. Keep him from sleeping. The first two he’ll gripe about, but third will break him down fast.
Alexis Perrier
on 08 May 08In order to have a good night sleep you also need to exercise. Napping for 20 to 30 mns is also wonderful to perform better but impossible if you work in a company Thanks for a great post again ! It’s time for a nap.
This discussion is closed.