LIFE HACKS – Three Reasons Why I Hack My Sleep.

Do you want more hours in the day to do what you want to do? Do you want to get more things done faster? Do you want to do this without feeling tired all the time?

My answer to all those questions was, “yes,” and I found how to do it.

I’ve been “hacking” my sleep.

I tend to only sleep about four hours every night.

Here’s the three reasons why I now “hack” my sleep.

1. There simply isn’t enough hours in a day.

I needed more hour to work on my stuff.  I’ve got way too many things to do and not enough time to do it.  So sleep had to go.

There’s 24 hours in the day.  Depending on what time I wake up, and leave work, I spend about of 2 – 4 hours in transit driving between work and home. Yeah, I live far away from and work and traffic is just awful, depending on when I leave for work.

24 – 4 = 20 hours

Once I’m at work I spend eight hour there, sometimes a bit more, not including lunch, which would makes it nine hours.

20 – 9 = 11 hours

If I get home at decent time (around 6 or 7 o’clock) I spend that time eating dinner and being with my kids. They usually go to sleep around 8pm.

11 – 2 = 8 hours

Depending on traffic, I might get an hour extra around this time.

Even if I stay up, an hour more, I only have one, maybe two hours to work on my own stuff before I need to go to sleep, otherwise I can’t function.

8 – 1 = 7 hours

So that’s seven hours of sleep or so then I and have to start it all over again.

I just don’t have enough time. I needed a way to get more.  So I cut out sleep.

2. It’s Rob Stenzinger and Jerzy Drozd‘s Fault

So I was listening to Lean into Art extra lean cast.  It was episode #13. You can only listen to these podcasts if you sign up to the Lean into Art newsletter.

Anyway, Rob brought up this iPhone App he was using that woke him up at the right times during his sleep cycle so he didn’t feel too groggy when he woke up called: Sleep Cycle iOS App.

I found it intriguing so I downloaded it and tried it out.

I loved.  It’s great.

This got me thinking about sleeping and sleep cycles. I did a little bit of research about it on the internet and found myself going down this crazy rabbit hole about sleeping less by hacking your sleep.

Here are the article I read that changed my sleeping habits:

How to Hack Your Brain

Everyman Sleep

Everyman Sleep Schedule

3. It’s working Great.

I was convinced into trying it. I was excited about getting more time to do what I needed to do.

And you know what, it worked.

So the method I’m using is called the “Everyman 3.”

I sleep four hours, haven’t broken the three hour mark yet. For some reason I just keep falling back to sleep immediately after I wake up when I do that.  I sleep four hours between 12am and 4am.

I get up, go to work which takes me an hour around that time.

At 9am I take a 20 min nap.  I continue working.

At 2pm I take another 20 min. nap. I work til quitting time.  My drive back is around 1.5 to 2 hours, depending on traffic.

Then I eat and spend time with the kids.  They go to sleep, at the latest 9pm, and now I get three to four hours to work on my own stuff.

That’s HALF A DAY.

And I don’t really feel tired except as nap times get closer.

Do I recommend it?

Yes, although it means being very disciplined about your nap times. And you have be comfortable with the idea that you won’t get the pleasure of lounging in bed anymore.

I mean, you have to get up soon after your alarm rings, otherwise, what’s the point. You’re doing this to get more time to do things.

What do you think? Will you give this a shot? Let me know.

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