Your Productivity Stalls the Moment You Stop Doing This

Many entrepreneurs reach a point where they feel like they have to give up everything else in their lives other than grinding away to achieve their business goals.

The entrepreneur’s life consists of late nights, stress about how to meet payroll, early mornings and coffee. Lots of coffee.

Interestingly, according to scientific research, it seems that entrepreneurs have an actual, documented tendency towards insomnia and ADHD-like experiences. Disrupted sleep appears to be a factor that is influential in nudging people towards taking action to achieve their entrepreneurial visions.

However, that seems to be the only major upside to entrepreneurial sleep deprivation. Multiple studies have documented both the advantages of being well rested and the detrimental effects wrought by lack of sleep.

According to Harvard Business Review, well-rested entrepreneurs are more adept at spotting viable business ideas. Sleep, they tell us, improves entrepreneurial outcomes, particularly when it comes to ideation and task evaluation.

According to research published in the Sleep Health journal, symptoms of insomnia are correlated with poor productivity at work.

Far too many entrepreneurs have mistakenly concluded that skimping on sleep is the best way to squeeze a few more hours out of each day. The truth is, founders would be better able to serve their startups by sleeping 8 hours each night.

But what about entrepreneurs who simply cannot sleep? Many founders suffer from an inability to shut their brains down, which tends to result in a bad case of entrepreneur’s insomnia. The following tips are intended to help insomniac entrepreneurs relax, wind down and get some rest:

Make Your Bedroom Relaxing:

• Stop checking email after dinner.
• Turn your phone off at night.
• Ban screens from having any place in the bedroom. This includes both your TV and your phone.
• Avoid reading the news before going to bed.
• Get black-out curtains or shades to make your bedroom sufficiently dark for sleeping.
• Ditch your old, worn out, lumpy mattress and get one that is more comfortable. Ecosa makes the ideal sleep-inducing, comfortable memory foam mattresses to consider.

Habitually Maintain an Updated To-Do List

Many entrepreneurs find that maintaining a prioritized to-do list allows them to reserve mental energy so they don’t have to make a point of remembering every imminent task. Writing it all down empowers you to let go long enough to sleep at night.

Create an Evening Routine to Wind Down

Humans tend to be creatures of habit. If you’ve already established a habit of not sleeping, you may have to work a bit at establishing the opposite habit. You can do this by making a focused effort to wind down each night.

Everybody’s wind-down routine could be different, so make yours work for you. What relaxes you? Taking a hot bath? Meditation? Listening to music? Whatever it is, try doing that for half an hour, then putting on your pajamas, brushing your teeth and getting into bed. Repeating this sequence every night before bedtime will prepare you mentally for sleep.

There’s no doubt that your productivity takes a nosedive as soon as you stop getting the sleep you need – so if you aren’t sleeping well, it’ll be worth the effort to get your sleep habits back on track. You’re sure to enjoy increased productivity as a result.