As a recovering busyholic, I know the temptation for production and the always present need that I have to produce. I’ve gotten much better in recent years in managing my addiction to produce, and I’ve increasingly dug into the apparent need that I have to fill here. It is not a true need, rather it is a gap fill on another level.
However, there is still a healthy level to operate from that does require true production and high quality work. There are all sorts of habitual hacks, workflow systems, focus models, org models, engagement models, delivery models, and ongoing operating models that can be employed to deliver the results we need in our work lives and our non work lives. So given the need to produce, what is the number one thing we should be mindful of when it comes to production?
I have been studying this question intently over the past year, and the answer is invariably a twist on getting enough rest. There are differing flavors of rest – there are micro naps, nightly sleeping habits, weekend routines, monthly get aways, quarterly sabbaticals and perhaps even once in a lifetime vacations that can be had.
In doing some training recently over at Mindvalley, one of the founders was doing a webcast on lifestyle improvement and design. He stated the most important thing that we should be doing as a culture to get the most amplified results across all areas of your life was…any guesses?
It was getting enough sleep at night.
Sleep.
Get enough sleep.
The results are pronounced and multifaceted if you can actually pull this off. In the past month, I’ve been averaging about 5 hours of time in bed with about 4 hours of true sleep. The output across many dimensions of my life definitely surged, yet things began to crumble slowly as I slid into home plate in early June. I knew I had a 3-4 week surge that I had to deliver through as I headed into my early June timeframe.
The results were impressive, my life was very, very full during this window with my various projects in and out of work, hitting a few concerts along the way, and a couple of business trips too.
However, the home office has papers in stacks at the moment.
There is laundry to do.
There are some unpaid bills that took a little longer to get paid, simply due to my being out of balance.
The most important stuff got done. My Q2 goal for the year has been accomplished one month early, and I’ve set myself up well for the remainder of the year.
However, there is a bigtime hangover from that surge effort. I planned to be on vacation for a few days in early June. The first two days, I could barely get out of bed. I felt the surge in my bones and in my aching muscles. My ability to be present in the moment was a sagging muscle due to the tired brain that I had in my head.
I slept a solid 12 hours each of the first two nights away from everything. I am continuing to log double digit hours of sleep each night – this is after a nearly week.
The brain fog is lifting.
The clarity has continued to return and emerge, even as I’m quieting my mind during this period of decompression. The balance is returning, as I begin to reenter my daily life again after a few days off and truly relaxing.
When I return to the daily routine – I know for a fact that I will not be hitting the sheets at 8:30pm like Tom Brady does, nor will I be waking up at 5:30am each day like he does either. However, I will be much more focused on returning to a healthy sleep routine that has me getting at least seven hours of sleep each night with a few nights a week over 8 or 9 hours.
The benefits of doing so as a 42 year old man are profound, and I’ll write about those benefits in a future post. Once I get some more rest tonight…