Don't sacrifice your sleep. Sooner or later, it will catch up with you. You won't perform at your best, and
you will get sick.
–Will Dean, an Olympic rower for Canada, competed in the London 2012 games. He is currently
training
for Rio 2016.
Did you know that consumers buy over four billion cans of Red Bull each
year? The company behind 5-Hour Energy power shots reportedly makes more
than $600 million in revenue annually.
People everywhere are fatigued and looking for a quick fix. But while an
energy drink might
bring short-term alertness, it’s no way to handle the chronic
brain fatigue so many of us have come to view as normal.
How Monica Leonelle 6x’d Her Productivity
I am a writer.
I write slowly. This is a problem. Because…I am a writer.
About a year ago I tracked my productivity and learned that I write on
average 500 words per hour. Most professional writers produce at least twice
that amount.
So in order to make better progress on my next book—this book actually—
my natural inclination was to “time manage” my writing.
I could make a list of
all the things I needed to write. I could prioritize them and make sure I was
spending time writing this book each day. I minimized distractions and said no
more often. I tried to “find” more hours in each day, each week, and each month.
I
even outsourced some research, like the time management quotes you’ll find at
the end of this book.
And all of that helped to a degree.
But then I noticed that writing came easily around eight in the morning. Kids
off to school, I’m feeling fresh, and my coffee is kicking in. I checked, and my
average words per hour in the morning was about 750–1,000.
But then I checked
my productivity in the afternoon—getting a little tired and already thinking
about the nightly activities—I discovered that my word count was about 250 per
hour. Yes, my overall average was 500 words, but the same chunk of time, 60
minutes, produced dramatically different results
based on how I felt in the
moment.