No- I Dont Sleep

Chris,

I've got to do some more reading on this site. But just so you know I find highly useful and I've been telling everyone in our marketing department about you. Our Sr. VP of IT is also reading your stuff now. He gave you a thumbs up. I don't know how you do it, I assume you have kids too. Don't burnout because alot of us really love what you're doing. You are an inspiration. On your advice, I ordered the book on Self-Esteem. I also had a meeting with few executives the other day and quoted some of things you've written about taking charge of your life... we all agreed that we want to hire people who believe they are the CEO of their life. Keep it up, I'm a big fan.

Sleep is over-rated if you are doing what you love. As soon as it becomes too stressful or dreadful, its time for a lifestyle change. Looks like you still love what you do.

@Steve - I have a wife and two children, 6 and 2. They help me with not sleeping, by the way. : )

I used to get really funny looks when I told people I worked 14 hours a day on my pc. I've got two small children after all - where was I fitting time with them, time for myself (like showering and 'stuff') in after all?
The long and short answer I gave when pressed was that because of living with bipolar disorder I only sleep four hours a day - and for five days in every 60, I don't sleep, at all. It's amazing how much more *time* you have when you don't sleep much. :D

Chris, I've started to follow your blog only recently, but I'm already impressed by the content. I would expect that you now write the post "My Best Advise on Personal Productivity" :)

Sleep is about quality, not quantity. If you work hard and play hard, you will sleep hard. I find I am at my best when my work life and my play life are things I love. Then my down time is deserved, appreciated and rejuvenating.

I can't imagine how my life would be if I DIDN'T have a million things happening at once. The secret, I've learned is to take each moment as it comes and enjoy the ride. Cliche as it may sound, life IS a journey - not a destination.

Excellent post!

you and your pals are canaries in a coal mine
we'll see down the road how all this effects your health
my hunch is it won't be pretty
i personally think you're all a bunch of loonies.

Chris--This post reminded me of this BNL song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3B9BuTkaw0. I think you'd appreciate it--it's called "Who Needs Sleep?"

But to answer the question: I do! I get cranky if I don't get enough! I'm always impressed by the folks that can burn the midnight oil then magically be 100% on top of their game the next day. I'll need to find that secret sauce, someday. :-)

"Some day, I’ll settle down and focus on one thing at a time."

*Never*, Chris. And don't worry about that - multi-focus one of your strengths.

I agree sleep is over-rated and hard to do when you love what you are doing. Blip helps keep me jazzed when I become numb, but you are a HUGE inspiration for me.

Hi Chris,
I am the same way. First of all, I don't NEED as much sleep, anymore. Secondly, I am marketing in my head, and thinking of new stuff 24/7.
Healthy? probably not.
Just looking for that thing, whatever it happens to be, that gets me where I want to go.
Joel Libava

Wow. I recently subcribed to you blog. And just today went through a few of your posts. I like what you write. Basic human stuff - without much cream.

I guess you are quite clear about what you are and what you want to be so that must be - so that must be freeing up a lot of your thought processors.

Look forward to your writings.Keep it coming.

I'm very similar to you, Chris. I think I probably manage 4-5 hours each night. It's too difficult to sleep when your mind's racing about your next project/client/blog post (delete where applicable).

I also run my own PR agency, so a lot of the time I'm multi-tasking on projects/outsourced staff, etc.

A lot of people say this isn't normal, but then define normal. One man's cheese is another man's yogurt (or something like that!).

I do admit to the odd power nap in the afternoon, but that's about it. I guess I just want to take advantage of my brain before it gets old ans starts slowing down. ;-)

Me, too: girl 5, and boy 19 months. I work with people around the globe who always ask me the same question. We met in Sept at MarketingProfs in Boston. Hope our paths will cross again.

I've always been GREEN with envy at people who only need 4 or so hours of sleep of night! I'm a "need-8-hours" person and sleep is such a waste of time - I do it only because I HAVE to. Like Kai, I'm bipolar and with 4 hours only, I start becoming hypomanic and then sometimes manic, followed by a spectacular crash-and-burn, which is rarely worth it. So yeah, I'm jealous.

I love what you write and your style and the valuable insights you provide to us along the way.

I must take a moment to suggest to you and all your readers to be careful on the sleep matter though. There are many studies to indicated that sleep deprivation in our society is a huge problem. I tend to think that some people require more and some people less, but there are limits to our body's tolerance. So be careful!

I also have a personal belief that it is important beyond the natural requirements of our body for rest and restoration. There is also a spiritual restoration that occurs (especially if we tune our spirits to be in touch with the one who made us). After all the one who made us can also best lead us through the challenges that we all encounter on this journey called life.

Blessings all and be careful to sleep enough and rest in Him as well!/sc

My two smallish kids sleep endlessly, lucky for me. Unlucky for me, I love being curled up in there with them. But not having a TV helps with the productivity. :)

Well now that I blog I too get very little sleep. I must admit though that I get a charge out of blogging, Twitter, Photography [Late night Photoshop] and connecting with creative individuals. I have never been so focused as I am now.

Oh look. It's late I must be off to bed...oh let's chec the TweetDeck just one more time...

JP Holecka

I used to do this a lot, managing day job with own projects at night, barely sleeping 3-4 hours a day :) but since last couple of years I am less into this routine.

I only average about 3-5 hours a night. The biggest problem is when it is morning I am awake, no matter how late I went to sleep.

For a moment, consider that we do our real work during sleep times and become conscious only to deal with our existential selves before plunging back into work once again.

I watched a great documentary the other day (http://www.sbs.com.au/blogarticle/109508/Dead-T...) called Dead Tired which focused on the science of sleep and why we should all get more. Turns out, memory is tightly linked with sleep. I saw it as something like this: During the day we collect a huge number of 'things' - we absorb the world, how it works, different experiences and learnings. We take these with us all day, in something I picture as a mental inbox. We only process these and 'download' them into our opperating system when we sleep and go through REM sleep. To do this properly, we need to go through a standard sleep cycle, which naturally takes about 8 hours.

I always got funny about the recommended sleep thing being '8 hours' - thinking it was just the machine telling me 8 hours was what I should get rather than what I needed. But, turns out, the body rules and it needs about 8 hours a night to fully download.

This, in a small way, is why some of us (me included here, I'm not a perfect sleeper either) have things running through out heads at night. It's a function of how creative, inspired etc etc we are, but also the fact that our RAM is full to the brim and instead is trying to process everything quickly and getting nowhere fast.

Sleep is important and good sleep even more so. Chris, we don't care if you don't blog or reply to our tweet - but we do care if you fall ill because of your beautiful desires to keep up with all of us. :) Take care of yourself man, it's what we all want.

I don't get as much sleep as I'd like to. I think we need sleep to be healthy people and that long-term shortage of sleep is not good for us.

Chris, I very much admire what you do and I think your book Trust Agents is the best one out there in this general topic but... you have the signs of a workaholic. Just wait. One day, you will pay a price. I hope it's not too serious (such as a heart attack or serious diabetes, or...) because lack of sleep does other whacky things that over time can be very damaging.

Your work clearly consumes you and it's why you do so well and have the success you have. I'm not knocking your motives or your incredible talents and the hard work you do.

I mean my comments with all care and not as a pointing finger but you "appear" to be addicted to your work and any addiction is still addiction.

Take care of yourself. You're still young.

It's easier to forgo sleep if you like what you do and are good at it. You qualify on both levels, Chris. I read Trust Agents recently and reviewed it favorably on my site. Keep on keeping on.