4 hours isn’t enough. Neither is 5 or 6. Get 7 hours of sleep.
Why?
If you want to maintain influence and mood, you’ll need to sleep. Fatigue increases the chance of erratic behavior. You’ll stop being empathetic and start being moody. You’ll lose focus on the work that matters.
Instead of focusing on being proactive, you’ll fall into the trap of being reactive.
That is the first step in losing influence and impact.
Get some sleep.
Remember this old Snickers ad campaign?
The only change I would say is don’t eat a snickers bar.
Have some peanuts. Or almonds.
Either way, if you feel frustrated, get something to eat.
The worst part about the word is the two behaviors feed each other. When you don’t stop to communicate what you are doing and feed into your insecurity, it gets easier to lose track because “busy” often works.
Note: You aren’t as busy as you think you are.
You don’t get points for making things harder on yourself.
Sleeping, like eating, is an important function to how we operate.
The idea that 4 hours of sleep is a badge of honor is like saying you ate 3 eggs per day, and that’s it. After a day or two, your body would throw a hissy fit.
The lack of sleep is doing the same thing to your mind.
I get it: it’s trendy to say how “busy” you are.
It makes us feel important, but it’s shallow. The “busy” stuff generally cuts into our sleep and the “busy” is rarely important.
That’s why no one ever keeps track of your “busy” days.
The body and mind keep track of the days you don’t sleep, and it just makes things harder on you because your body didn’t do its work.
If clarity and focus matter, start treating sleep as importantly as you do dinner.
Get some sleep.
Did you know your brain isn’t sleeping when you are?
Wait what…?
Essentially, it’s doing this:
Sleep is work.
Maybe I’ve always known that since I never was a morning person. If I did anything before 9 AM it was special (or a living requirement…I’ll get up to pay my rent, and even that was a challenge).
But, until recently, I never acted on the information. I’ve gotten up with the sun over the last few weeks more often than not by recharging after all that sleep work.
How do I recharge after getting such a “sleep workout?”
I am full of energy before the day begins. Good morning!
The 28th year was a major one. I quit. I read. I spoke.
I became a better writer.
I got the privilege to study with amazing people, and now coach (I didn’t see my life going here)
I want to thank everyone for the birthday wishes. I’d like to suggest a challenge – every time you post a happy birthday to me, send a message to an old friend telling them you love them.
Why today? Well, its random :-D.
When we expect the payout we don’t get to cherish it much. Think about your job and how you get paid. A paycheck is normal and we don’t care, but finding five bucks on the ground or having your boss buy you lunch on a whim changes an entire day (or week).
Happy Birthday on April 9th is great, I love what you are doing on June 9 or November 12th is amazing.
We all have 24 hours in a day.
How does one maximize engagement and get purposeful?
There are plenty of ways to do it, but I promised shorter posts :-).
I’ll focus on what you can’t do.
You can’t do it if:
I overestimate and under value the sleep I get.
This happens because I count the hours in bed as the hours of sleep. The thing is, for an hour before I go to sleep and an hour I wake up, I am not asleep.
My phone has to get the “cycle.”
The cycle is texts, emails, “Boom Beach,” and social media I can fit in before I start to feel tired or there is nothing less. Then I allow myself to put on some music and go to sleep.
I know intellectually that this isn’t good for me, but I still do it.
Last year I wrote about not taking my cell phone to work, and the changes it made.
This month, I am removing my cell phone from my bed room before bed.
I’ll let you know how it goes.
I had several ideas on what to write today.
But nothing is sticking enough to put down. It isn’t that I have writers block, it’s that the ideas aren’t formulated enough to get put down. If I sat here any longer, I am sure I could come up with another 15 or 20 ideas to put down that interest me in the moment.
I want to try an experiment. I can’t run away from these ideas. I want to force myself to write to these ten ideas over the next ten days. I don’t want my mind to change in midstream.
How do I react when there are expectations, and I can’t maneuver as a writer to write what I want? The experiment begins now.
This week I talked about sleep.
When I started this, I was very scared of putting myself on video, so I got the courage and put myself in the arena, killing a lot of bad self talk.This gives me the chance to work on my communication skills, start a new medium, and experiment!
Once a week, after I have thought about them, I will give them a day here on the blog.
These aren’t just promotion posts (although they are, please watch and share 
) I want to take the time to break them down and try to clarify what I want to communicate and the tactical things I learned through doing.
If you enjoyed the video, and if you want to get on the ride, please,subscribe to my YouTube channel, and join my Facebook page where I post them every Sunday night.
Sleep is critical to any type of thinking you do. If you want to be at your best, please take the time to integrate sleep in your schedule. The idea of sleeping when your dead will leave you mentally dead instead.
From the desk of Adam Thomas 