Small Business Management

I’ll admit…the only reason I got interested in time management was so I could get stuff done as fast as I can and go to bed.

Alright, that wasn’t the only reason. I still wanted to do the “stuff” well, get time to have fun with family and friends and achieve my goals.  But sleep was a very close second factor in giving me the push to manage my day time properly.

So far so good, but have you ever had an uneasy feeling inside that maybe….just maybe you are sleeping a bit too much? Yeah, I get those almost everyday (shh…).

And then you have to rush to the defense, “of course I need good sleep to function“, “Have you seen me sleep deprived? I’m just out of it” “sleep helps my brain rest so I can come up with good ideas” and so on….

Today, I was reading a blog post from Steve Pavlina‘s blog on How to Become an Early Riser and it made me realize how my sleep pattern was the biggest loophole in my time management system (alright, I knew it was there but had carefully ignored it for long) and while I was reading the article, my brain was fighting the issue “Well, he has a home office so he can setup his times and well, some people just need more sleep than others“. But, I have to admit, my brain just lost the battle when he started to talk about the number of hours I could gain by checking my sleep schedule.

And I decided to do some calculations…

Currently, I get about 7 hours of sleep everyday. Seven hours isn’t bad but that means I get up 20 minutes before I have to leave the house. This means I get to eat breakfast either in the car or the bus (depending on whether I choose to drive or get a bit more sleep on my way) and it also means I get days where I eat my breakfast/lunch at 2 PM.

Now what happens if I could get up 30 minutes earlier? Not a bid deal eh? But, it could mean I can eat breakfast and get some energy for early morning labs (tempting). But  number-wise, it also mean that I could get 2.5 extra hours each week (if I get up early Mon-Fri).

Hmmm….it’s getting more tempting….

Now what about the weekend?

I sleep way more during the weekends. I get about 11 hours of sleep a night during the weekend. So if I cut that down to 6.5, guess what that means? That’s 9 extra hours of the weekend. In a month, that alone is 36 hours saved, almost equivalent to one full work week.

Now that got me.

What could I do with 9 extra hours of the weekend? Watch a movie? Dine out? Write some more blog posts? Read some more books? There are a lot of possibilities and a lot of opportunities.

Now of course that doesn’t mean cut down on sleep but it does mean try to manage it properly. Most people believe an adult needs about 8 hours of sleep but the reality is 8 isn’t the magic number for everyone. I know I personally function way better with 6 hours of sleep than 8. So the goal is to get sound sleep (that by the way, will also give you more energy and keep you healthy) and still have more productive hours in the day to manage.

Goodnight for now though. It’s 6 minutes past my bed time.