Saturday, April 16, 2011

Where's the data on how little sleep I can get away with?

I don't know if it's a fact that software developers as a group operate sleep deprived for long periods of time before catching up, but anecdotally I know it to be true. It's certainly something I struggle with on a daily basis.

Yesterday when I saw this NY Times article titled "How little sleep can you get away with?" I thought it was great, made me think I maybe should change my ways:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sleep-t.html

I re-read it this morning because I wanted to know where the sleep deprivation to productivity inflection point was. How long can I go with sleep deprivation before the increased amount of awake but impaired time becomes counter productive? Frustratingly it's not in the article. This is the kind of bad reporting I can't stand anymore. I don't want paragraphs of "story", I want a short description and then tables of data. This is the kind of thing Mythbusters would easily and clearly have nailed in a simple table.

How much sleep to get is particularly tough because with kids, wake up time is totally out of your hands. I wrote SleepMute for Mac (available on the Mac App Store) mostly to guarantee uninterrupted sleep from my always on Mac's sound alerts when I do hit the sack.
http://www.tangerineelement.com/main/sleepmute.html

Ironic I developed the app to help with uninterrupted sleep using a lot of sleep deprivation.

Monday, April 04, 2011

Monday Morning Inspiration

Wil Shipley with some good inspirational words for my Monday morning...

"The secret of success turns out to be so incredibly simple: Work your ass off. Really care about what you're creating, not the fame or fortune you'll get. You'll succeed."