Sleep deprivation: The entrepreneur’s curse

Image by blackholeSleep via Flickr

There’s a national epidemic of sleep deprivation, only made worse by the stressful downturn.  For entrepreneurs of any stripe, I think it’s even more acute, especially for those in the start-up phase. Even in a good economy, a new business is a 24/7 effort. Now it’s ridiculous.

I read something postulating that the most pernicious contributing factor to entrepreneurial sleep deprivation isn’t the bad economy, so much as disorganization:

If you’re still in the startup stage (I count this as the first three years of business), there’s just so much to do and only so much time to do it. If you have kids, or are trying to keep up a semblance of a personal life, it’s often very hard to fit time for both into 24 hours. (As I’ve mentioned before, I hate the term work/life balance, since I think it’s just unachievable.) But, for lots of us, I think the problem is our time management, or more accurately, lack thereof.

via Are You Running Your Business, or Running on Empty? | The Small Business Blog.

Well, I’m not sure poor time management is the ultimate culprit.  If you’re running a startup, have a family, and are facing a difficult market, it’s going to affect your sleep.  Still,  if you can operate efficiently, at least you’ll be able to squeeze as much productive work as possible into each day (and evening, night and middle of the night).

It’s a more important issue than you might think.  Constant lack of sleep has some very scary health side effects–shortening your life span, for example–not to mention decimating your productivity.

To get the most out of a limited amount of sleep time,  also try:

–Making sure the blinds are closed tight and the room is as dark as possible.

–Never reading before going to sleep. Or, certainly, not reading anything too exciting or work-related.

–Doing some stretches before getting into bed, but not strenuous exercise.

Also, during the day, try to take a 20-minute nap.  It provides  a pick-me-up, but is short enough to prevent falling into a deep sleep. I believe that Salvador Dali used to sit in a chair with a heavy book on his lap. When he fell asleep, the book inevitably would fall on the floor and wake him up. But he would have grabbed a few minutes of rejuvenating shut-eye.

In fact, I’ve tried it and it works.