6 ms·

Our society is so focused on productivity that we forget that the foundation for improved productivity is sleep, exercise and diet. Mind & Body, one system.

anbotero 7y ago
I enjoy my sleep thoroughly and I sleep 7-8 hours a day. Still, I think it’s a waste of time, and I don’t mean work productivity, but life. You sleep, wake up, and surprise, a third of the day has just gone by and you didn’t even notice. I recognize the need to sleep, but I personally just wished we could develop a way to keep going with your day without sleeping. If that were physically possible, I’d just meditate some few hours daily instead of sleeping 7-8 hours.
- dylan604 7y ago
  >If that were physically possible, If. But it's not. Sleep is not an 'include' but a 'require' statement.
  - matwood 7y ago
    Sure, but I think how much is required has become a source of confusion, groupthink, and stress for many people.
- zoomablemind 7y ago
  If you factor in that during sleep your body is actively restoring your organs, and mind is flushing/filing the info collected during the wake hours. How many hours needed for that is an intriguing question. But hardly this time is wasted, unless your sleep is ... restless. I recently watched an episode of "Nova" on the subject of sleep (Mysteries of Sleep), very convincing , even to some toddlers fussy about the sleep as usual :)
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    Still, it's upkeep. It's necessary, but I wish it wasn't, because it's expensive.
    - anbotero 7y ago
      Exactly my point
- IntemerateApe 7y ago
  Have you read up on polyphasic sleep? I haven't tried it, but it does seem it is physically possible to sleep much less than 7-8 hours per 24 hour cycle.
- croo 7y ago
  Think about it the other way. The optimal, very best way for any living organism to live the most healthy and longest life possible is to only sleep and never wake up. That is the ideal state for your body and mind. I recognize the need to eat, detoxicate and reproduce, but wish we could develop a way to keep sleeping while doing it :)
  - collyw 7y ago
    I find that hard to believe, you are going to need to eat and drink, which as far as I am aware you need to be awake for.
fortpoint 7y ago
It's difficult for some managers to measure the productivity of knowledge workers and unfortunately they resort to tracking the number of hours there are "butts in seats". If your organization is like this you'll see people who are at work to be seen being at work, even if they're not being productive. Japanese salarymen are the pathological example of this but I'm sure it manifests everywhere.
- scirocco 7y ago
  Absolutely, unfortunately taylorism did follow suit into the world of knowledge workers. In some hostile work environments like banking this is everywhere. Don't leave before your manager, eat lunch at your desk, look busy and stay in the office as long as you can
sjtindell 7y ago
Personally being a tech worker in Silicon Valley, I’ve found the big barrier to this now to be cultural and personal. All my companies (large and small) have had incredibly relaxed policies around when to arrive, leave, remote work, time off, bereavement. Even in what have been SRE or Software Eng roles with on-call. I get the sense that if I’m doing my work, I could do whatever I want. But I still feel some pressure, some voice in the back of my head that thinks other people will look down on me or I won’t be deserving my high salary. Like anytime I have downtime I feel guilty, and I see others behave the same way.
- AmericanChopper 7y ago
  Personally I think a fair amount of the worst decisions people make tend to be motivated by an irrational sense of guilt.
  - derefr 7y ago
    I've always wondered why, with all the other emotional dispositions that people accuse pharma companies of "medicalizing" in order to sell them a drug treatment for, we've never seen any attempt to medicalize the Puritan work ethic. Maybe it's because it'd mean that pretty much every medical doctor would themselves be technically (or not-so-technically) considered mentally-ill? (Gosh, imagine a world where all the doctors got treatment for their floating guilt, and then suddenly woke up to their severe overwork, and so did a 180 on their previous push to the medical-bar to lower acceptance to increase wages, instead pushing to increase acceptance and lower wages in an attempt to increase the number of doctors a hospital can employ on a given budget, and therefore decrease hours worked per doctor?)
    - AmericanChopper 7y ago
      I don’t think a puritanical work ethic necessarily is unhealthy, but in your example I would consider the guilt aspect to be. In your example puritanical work ethic + (irrational imo) guilt = you exceed your contractual requirements to deliver work to your employer. Keep the work ethic but take the guilt out and perhaps instead you’d meet but not exceed your contractual obligations to your employer, and then organise the rest of your time around industriously working on something else that you’re personally passionate about. The second example could be unhealthy depending on how you approached it, but I wouldn’t say that it necessarily is, and I would say that it’s a big improvement over the first example.
Hokusai 7y ago
> Our society is so focused on productivity that we forget that the foundation for improved productivity is sleep, exercise and diet. I have seen more focus on getting people busy than actual productivity. The video games industry is a good example where the lack of planning and quite often personal maturity of the company leadership cause crunch time and a lack of personal well-being. > Mind & Body, one system. Exactly this. If , e.g., we run our planes like we run our bodies, they will just fall from the skies.
brikelly 7y ago
This is why practices like Sustainable Development (see https://sustainabledev.org/ https://sustainabledev.org/) are so important.

anbotero 7y ago

I enjoy my sleep thoroughly and I sleep 7-8 hours a day. Still, I think it’s a waste of time, and I don’t mean work productivity, but life. You sleep, wake up, and surprise, a third of the day has just gone by and you didn’t even notice. I recognize the need to sleep, but I personally just wished we could develop a way to keep going with your day without sleeping. If that were physically possible, I’d just meditate some few hours daily instead of sleeping 7-8 hours.

dylan604 7y ago
>If that were physically possible, If. But it's not. Sleep is not an 'include' but a 'require' statement.
- matwood 7y ago
  Sure, but I think how much is required has become a source of confusion, groupthink, and stress for many people.
zoomablemind 7y ago
If you factor in that during sleep your body is actively restoring your organs, and mind is flushing/filing the info collected during the wake hours. How many hours needed for that is an intriguing question. But hardly this time is wasted, unless your sleep is ... restless. I recently watched an episode of "Nova" on the subject of sleep (Mysteries of Sleep), very convincing , even to some toddlers fussy about the sleep as usual :)
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  Still, it's upkeep. It's necessary, but I wish it wasn't, because it's expensive.
  - anbotero 7y ago
    Exactly my point
IntemerateApe 7y ago
Have you read up on polyphasic sleep? I haven't tried it, but it does seem it is physically possible to sleep much less than 7-8 hours per 24 hour cycle.
croo 7y ago
Think about it the other way. The optimal, very best way for any living organism to live the most healthy and longest life possible is to only sleep and never wake up. That is the ideal state for your body and mind. I recognize the need to eat, detoxicate and reproduce, but wish we could develop a way to keep sleeping while doing it :)
- collyw 7y ago
  I find that hard to believe, you are going to need to eat and drink, which as far as I am aware you need to be awake for.

fortpoint 7y ago

It's difficult for some managers to measure the productivity of knowledge workers and unfortunately they resort to tracking the number of hours there are "butts in seats". If your organization is like this you'll see people who are at work to be seen being at work, even if they're not being productive. Japanese salarymen are the pathological example of this but I'm sure it manifests everywhere.

scirocco 7y ago
Absolutely, unfortunately taylorism did follow suit into the world of knowledge workers. In some hostile work environments like banking this is everywhere. Don't leave before your manager, eat lunch at your desk, look busy and stay in the office as long as you can

sjtindell 7y ago

Personally being a tech worker in Silicon Valley, I’ve found the big barrier to this now to be cultural and personal. All my companies (large and small) have had incredibly relaxed policies around when to arrive, leave, remote work, time off, bereavement. Even in what have been SRE or Software Eng roles with on-call. I get the sense that if I’m doing my work, I could do whatever I want. But I still feel some pressure, some voice in the back of my head that thinks other people will look down on me or I won’t be deserving my high salary. Like anytime I have downtime I feel guilty, and I see others behave the same way.

AmericanChopper 7y ago
Personally I think a fair amount of the worst decisions people make tend to be motivated by an irrational sense of guilt.
- derefr 7y ago
  I've always wondered why, with all the other emotional dispositions that people accuse pharma companies of "medicalizing" in order to sell them a drug treatment for, we've never seen any attempt to medicalize the Puritan work ethic. Maybe it's because it'd mean that pretty much every medical doctor would themselves be technically (or not-so-technically) considered mentally-ill? (Gosh, imagine a world where all the doctors got treatment for their floating guilt, and then suddenly woke up to their severe overwork, and so did a 180 on their previous push to the medical-bar to lower acceptance to increase wages, instead pushing to increase acceptance and lower wages in an attempt to increase the number of doctors a hospital can employ on a given budget, and therefore decrease hours worked per doctor?)
  - AmericanChopper 7y ago
    I don’t think a puritanical work ethic necessarily is unhealthy, but in your example I would consider the guilt aspect to be. In your example puritanical work ethic + (irrational imo) guilt = you exceed your contractual requirements to deliver work to your employer. Keep the work ethic but take the guilt out and perhaps instead you’d meet but not exceed your contractual obligations to your employer, and then organise the rest of your time around industriously working on something else that you’re personally passionate about. The second example could be unhealthy depending on how you approached it, but I wouldn’t say that it necessarily is, and I would say that it’s a big improvement over the first example.

Hokusai 7y ago

> Our society is so focused on productivity that we forget that the foundation for improved productivity is sleep, exercise and diet. I have seen more focus on getting people busy than actual productivity. The video games industry is a good example where the lack of planning and quite often personal maturity of the company leadership cause crunch time and a lack of personal well-being. > Mind & Body, one system. Exactly this. If , e.g., we run our planes like we run our bodies, they will just fall from the skies.

brikelly 7y ago

This is why practices like Sustainable Development (see https://sustainabledev.org/ https://sustainabledev.org/) are so important.