Productive on six hours of sleep? You’re deluding yourself, expert says
I can&#x27;t be alone in being exhausted at these studies. Doctors and Lawyers have spent the better part of the last century working on little to no sleep. Academics too. As an engineer, I would regularly work through little sleep because the process of loading a large project into my head to work on it would take more time than the gains from being more well rested. I&#x27;m older now, and no longer work as an engineer. I value my sleep and appreciate how much more I can task-switch on a good nights rest, but the idea that I&#x27;m not being productive when I&#x27;m grinding through work that has to get done and I&#x27;m tired seems an overwritten idea.<p>I&#x27;m not arguing against rest and recharging and clearing your mind. I just don&#x27;t see what these articles are trying to prove. When I was in college I had several stints of no sleep days to finish projects. Even into my early engineering career, I once billed 40 hours straight. Was I as &quot;productive&quot; per minute for that entire time as if I had slept through 5 nights? No. Would the work have gotten done faster than those 40 hours if I had slept for 8 hours in the middle a few times? No. I had a deadline, and there was nothing getting around the work needing to be done.<p>The argument seems to be against a constant sprinting mode, which I don&#x27;t think any company employs. Humans burn out after continuous work for weeks, sometimes months. But a week or 3 of little to no sleep to get through everything you need to? It&#x27;s worked for a long time. Arguably building up muscle memory while forcing rote things to be learned while on little sleep works. What are we trying to prove by this? That &quot;the man&quot; is out to abuse workers? Of course he is. But did anyone make partner at a law firm by claiming he&#x27;s going to more productive by working less? If you&#x27;re goal is work life balance, go ahead. But if you&#x27;re goal is to excel in a field, then it probably involves some sleep deprivation. PG wrote an article about the reason startups were suited for youth is that you could push through unreasonable hours to crank a lot of life into fewer days.<p>Sorry for the rant...just wondering if I&#x27;m alone in thinking this