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Is this few-hours sleep business feasible when you need to think deeply about abstract things during the day, eg. programming? I can see it working if your succ
by Tycho 16y ago
Is this few-hours sleep business feasible when you need to think deeply about abstract things during the day, eg. programming? I can see it working if your success is tied to being energetic, on the ball, constantly negotiating, acting on information or leading lots of people. But what if you need to do the analysis yourself?
- adeaver 16y agoI've been writing code for over 10 years and have been functioning on between 4 and 6 hours of sleep a night and have been quite successful. Not saying I'm one of the 'elite' either just my personal experience.
- brandall10 16y agoIn my case I've had this issue (advantage?) since childhood, where I vacillate between both states in 2 week blocks - 2 weeks at a time where I'll get 7-8 hours, and 2 weeks where I get approx half as much. In the latter case I simply don't get naturally tired. But it does eventually catch up to me, and then all of a sudden - bam!, I'm tired one night and naturally fall asleep say at 10pm every night. What I've found is with the poor sleep cycles I tend to be more energetic and get to solutions quicker. If the problem requires deep thinking, I can focus on the problem at hand much better, but at the same time I can make many superficial mistakes. The best I can say is it's a bit like being in a minor psychedelic state all the time, where the creative pathways of my mind are more open with a manic desire to latch onto something interesting. It also exacerbates my Asperger's-like condition. OTOH, if I am in the design process and building a piece a software that requires high conceptual integrity getting more sleep is certainly beneficial.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]