Posts tagged "routine"

Sleep

“Life is something that happens when you can’t get to sleep.” Fran Lebowitz

The world starts to blur a little, you reach a semi conscious state where you can barely see the word document open on your screen. The proposal still needs a lot of work, but you convince yourself to just close your eyes for minute, and you drift away ………for those of you who have had to pull continuous all nighters, this is a familiar state. Sleep pattern is the next point in my case which tends to go out of whack when the pressure is on. Initially it feels pretty good cutting down your usual 6 hours of sleep down to something like 4-5 hours, getting away with an extra hour or two is do-able for a short time. However extended periods of sleep deprivation can have serious side effects. 

It is a proven fact, that when the body experiences a continuous lack of sleep, the immune system starts to weaken, productivity dips and you enter a state of limbo where you just seem to be drifting along. Analyzing the situation from this angle clearly helps us realize that such a state is not desirable. Yet we continue to burn the midnight oil when the heat is on like there is no tomorrow. One of the factors it comes down to is, personality types. Some of us are pressure prompted and others just keeping plugging away day after day. If you are able to find the motivation and discipline to keep plugging away daily that is clearly the more desirable alternative.

Being a pressure prompted person myself, I have made a conscious effort to break tasks down over a longer period of time, to avoid the massive build up which occurs right before project delivery. It has helped boost my overall productivity and efficiency levels . However during extended crunch times my sleep is heavily compromised and this is another factor I am working on to bring under control. I am attempting this by putting structured routines into place and replacing some bad habits:

1. Going to sleep as soon as I cannot read a page of text without dozing off.

2. Setting my alarm clock to go off at specific time everyday. (I do no set it when I want to sleep in)

3. Taking 1 or 2 power naps of 15-20 minutes during the course of the day, depending on my level of fatigue.

4. Drastically decreasing caffeine intake during high pressure periods and switching to green tea.

Sleep is a critical component of our daily lives. I am going to make a conscious effort to stick to set routines even during turbulent periods to make sure that I am getting adequate amount of rest. This will in turn increase my overall level of productivity and efficiency while keeping my health in balance.

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Diets

“Strength is the ability to break a chocolate bar into four pieces with your bare hands – and then eat just one of those pieces” Judith Viorst

The mood in the office is one of pandemonium. Proposals need to be sent out, a customer wants a trial of the new software tomorrow and one of the key team members has called in sick. It is one of those crazy days. During the day you get hungry at random points and reach for the quickest snack to get an energy boost. This could be chips, chocolates, burgers or pizza as opposed to other healthier alternatives. The objective at this point is to get done with the meal as quickly as possible, and get back to work. Sometimes you realize you have missed lunch and all your timings are off the chart.

If this happens once a week it is acceptable as it is part of the entrepreneurial lifestyle, where there are no fixed lunch or dinner breaks. You are so consumed with the work at hand that time no longer registers in minutes or hours, rather in the amount of work that needs to be done by a given deadline. In this frame of mind your diet is not a priority, and it starts to show. Surviving on an unhealthy diet for an extended period of time can be severely detrimental to your health. If you have not seen Super Size Me , I recommend you do so to get an idea of how bad it can be. It is not only fast food, it may even be frequent and regular meals at restaurants. Getting your diet in control before it gets out of hand is essential.

Even though I have a pretty strict diet routine, it does go off track during these crazy periods. The last few such times I have attempted the following to keep my diet in check:

1. Keep a journal of my food intake when I am off my routine. Through this method I was actually able to see where I was overdoing it and I could then consciously tell myself to lay off the junk snacks.

2. Have a standard order when eating out. This one is a tough one, especially when you are at a fancy restaurant. However keeping the fried, creamy and desserts at a minimum certainly helps. This is not to say that you should avoid that stuff all together, induldge yourself once in a while, just do not make it a habit.

3. Instead of crisps stock the office up with granola bars, fruit, fat free yogurt and nuts. 

The next time I go into one of these intense periods I am going to make sure that I keep a healthy balance about what I eat and snack on. This will defintely help keep a better shape, prevent the constant after meals stupors and affect overall health positively in the long run.