How I Made a 26-Hour Day
andrewdumont.me
andrewdumont.me
tldr; I realized I am more productive when not interrupted during tasks that require thinking (specifically, ignoring phone calls and emails while working).
I thought this was going to be about an actual 26 hour day, which is entirely possible (and a very interesting subject).. but don't even think about maintaining a 26 hour schedule in 24 hours of time.
Do you mean sleeping 'x' amount of time every '26-x' hours? That is a very interesting notion. It creates an illusion of having more hours in a day. Of course, this comes at cost. If you were to sleep at 12.00am one day, you will have to sleep at 2am the next, and 4am the day after that and so on.
With a 28 hour day you'd come full circle in a week (I think), but with 6 days in your week instead of 7, and 120 hrs awake vs 112 hrs.
Edit: oops, just noticed jgeralnik beat me to it, with illustrations and all!
How long as he been maintaining this new schedule for? If he only started this a week ago, what's to say that this won't change the next week with an ever more optimised formula?
At first I thought that that is a ridiculously precise time, but it turns out to be a mis-quote. The source [1] claims that that is the average time to get back on task.
[1] http://www.fastcompany.com/944128/worker-interrupted-cost-ta...
There's also a trick I learned a couple of years ago that helps you fall asleep when you're lying in bed drunk with your eyes closed and, as the saying goes, "the world keeps turning." That trick is to put one foot on the floor. That will stabilize your sense of balance and you'll be able to fall asleep very quickly. (Also works if you're queasy with things like food poisoning.)
What are the benefits? More energy/zest during the day?
From a health perspective too, it's a lot easier to "refuel" your body throughout the day after a morning workout as opposed to at night.
Like Sharkweek said (awesome), the energy it gives you to start your day is amazing. It carries me to lunch with plenty of adrenaline flowing.
I also had difficulty falling asleep when I worked out in the evenings.
I and probably many others too, developed some natural defense against it. I just keep thinking about my task while half-listening to whatever comes up and unless its really that important, just keep it in a corner of my head (or if its a phone conversation, just give basic preplanned replies which take no thinking and make the opposite party happy. I just can't help it, it's automatic).
That's probably because i'm passionate about my tasks and rather introverted, tho. But I though it's interesting to think about it that way too.
1) Minimal lying in bed. If you're in your bed, you should be sleeping. If you can't fall asleep find out why and fix it.
2) Don't get distracted. Of course, easier said than done but you can definitely minimize any possibilites.
3) Experimentation with sleep. Try sleeping a little bit less and less until you find the minimal amount required for you to be refreshed.
4) Continuously reflect and ask yourself if there's a better or more efficient way of doing something.
I titled this post in this way because it really does make you feel like the day is extended by two more hours. Not literally, I'm taking about psychologically, which is often just as valuable.
I stand by my point about entrepreneurs' blogs providing clues to their character, but I retract the judgement on your use of "26-Hour Day". You could have been clearer in the title rather than waiting until the third paragraph, but then there is a reason you seller types are what you are: you're good at hooking people in; after all, you got me to read the article.
http://www.limedaring.com/hacking-your-week-the-28-hour-day/
I experimented a lot with sleep when I was younger. 26 hour days, 28 hour days, uberman. Now that I'm middle aged, I have no problems with sleep. I attribute this to several changes I made:
1) stopping my caffeine habit
2) no screen time before bed. reading fiction on a phone is OK, but no more than that.
3) getting old made waking up early a lot easier
4) My uberman experimentation gave me the ability of an infantry man to fall asleep quickly whenever and wherever I want
He has only 1 hour a day of "free time"? Surely that can't be in anyway normal.
If you're strength training, you may run into issues though.
But the generalisation that therefore 5:15 am workouts are detrimental to health is ludicrous.
Needless to say the author's advice is correct. Waking up early helps. And sometimes helps a lot. If you absolutely want to work like a machine. Then there is a schedule that has worked for me.
3 AM - Wake up, tend to hygiene. Excercise etc
4 AM - Start Work.
9 AM - Break fast/Newspaper/News
10 AM - Continue Work.
2 PM - Lunch
3 PM - Continue Work.
8 PM - Dinner.
8:45 PM - Review current days work, plan for tomorrow.
9 PM - Sleep.
If you notice an another thing there is no such a term like meetings in the whole schedule.
Some more tweaks/extensions to this exercise. Every Saturday I sit down to review how the past week went. I also put down clearly defined measurable goals which I want to achieve by next Saturday. These tasks are generally aligned to help me achieve monthly and yearly goals.
The 5 years goals, and decade goals are something of a different thing. Generally mine are financial goals. And are easy to keep a track of.
Now given I absolutely must have to travel many times in the week to office. And inevitable meetings creep in, this schedule doable only once or twice a week.
I'm guessing that's not his schedule 7 days a week. I think that's just the ideal productivity schedule.
Though I would like to make it a trend(Note to Self: That's impossible)
This is a timetable. It's shiny and all, but it's not as though I'm staring blankly at it trying to work out how you achieved such perfection.
'Time table' you see is a finished product of months of various schedule attempts, taking feedback, course correcting and that cycle.
Just because the it comes packed, it doesn't mean some one did in one monolithic strike.
My point was just that, it's almost entirely trial and error. This isn't the culmination of a drastic change in our understanding of sleep cycles and time allocation, it's just something that works for this guy.
I just think it's blown out of proportion, all things considered.
I too have found that when I don't review and clearly lay out what I'd like to accomplish that day (or week), I tend to work just to work -- another post in and of itself. :)
Also, I fail to see how this makes it a 26-Hour Day.