What Compounding Sleep Strain Has to Do with Your Productivity
How you might be holding yourself back
You know when you can’t go to sleep, but you really, really want to? This was me last night. And sleep, like productivity, can be a compounding problem. Let me explain.
I tried everything last night. I listened to my Headspace app sleep meditation, I tried stretching, I drank hot sleepy time tea. I even got the purring cat to lay on my stomach. Nada. No sleep fairy. And with every minute that ticked by, I was more and more worried about my early wake up time the next morning.
I call this phenomenon compounding sleep strain. No, that’s not a clinical term (but it’s good, right?). I become worried when I can’t sleep that I won’t get enough sleep. That worry keeps me from relaxing and then, it takes me even longer to go to sleep because I’m stressing about not sleeping. It’s a vicious cycle.
And the same thing can happen to your productivity.
Compounding, sleep, and getting things done
The more we put off starting a task, the more that task weighs on our brains, and the more of a “big deal” that task becomes. Both productivity and sleep are very similar to compounding interest.
If I put $100 today in an account with a 6% annual compounding interest (I know, that’s optimistic), I’ll have $3,207 in twenty years. If I wait until five years form now to invest that $100, I’ll only have $2,396. The same goes for starting a project. And for sleep.
I put off starting a Substack newsletter for over a year. With every day I didn’t create that dang account, it became more and more of a big deal that I hadn’t. And now, one year later, I have missed out on the compounding returns from a year of building an audience.
Sleep’s compounding strain is negative instead of positive. The longer you spend not sleeping, the diminishing returns of your rest because the arrival of the sleep fairy is put off by your spinning brain that is calculating all the sleep you won’t get if you don’t go to sleep right now!
Productivity’s compounding strain is negative, but twofold. The longer you wait to get started, the further behind you are on that project’s compounding returns. But, also, the longer you wait to get started, the more brain space you have taken up reminding yourself (and scolding yourself) about not getting it done.
Why you don’t want to
While I’m not a sleep scientist and I obviously can’t make myself sleep (much less anyone else), I am a productivity nerd and I can definitely give advice on getting a project started. In short, the sooner you start, the better. Sounds easy enough, right?
Here’s the rub. Many of us look at those folks who started their projects before us and think, “What’s the use? They’re already so far ahead of me, so why should I even bother?” Let’s dig a bit into this lie.
It’s exhausting to be at the bottom of any mountain when we see others on their way to the top. It was disheartening for me to see others who started newsletters a year or two years before me with thousands and thousands of readers. It was tempting to say “no thanks” to starting from scratch. Just like it’s tempting to think, I made $0.05 interest on my investment — it isn’t worth it.
But, that’s the magic of compounding. And compounding works in practically any area of life. The more you engage on social media, the more people know of your work, the more that snowball gets going down that hill. The more you practice a skill or sport, the more confident you become, the more you can improve. When we pull out our money, our time, our focus, or our energy early, we don’t see the benefits. And we have to start from scratch again. And, more importantly, the longer we put off starting any project, the more we lose.
Final thoughts
While compounding sleep strain is one of the most annoying things in, like, the world, it is also a good reminder that the sooner we start something, the less of a “thing” it becomes.
So, the sooner you get going on any project, the faster you’ll get that compounding going and the less you’ll beat yourself up about not getting it done. My advice? Do it. Today. Start the clock, even if it’s in a small way. And soon, you’ll be able to look back and think, “look how far I’ve come!”