Protect your asset

Day 348 / 365

When someone’s running a marathon, they don’t sprint at the highest speed possible right from the beginning. They would pace themselves gradually as they don’t want to run out of stamina. In life as well, this principle applies. If you think of yourself as an overachiever who wants to do as much as possible right from the start, you are going to lose the most precious asset you have, which is you yourselves.

It’s not that hard to push yourselves to the limits. What most workaholics would tell you, however, is that it is really hard to actually do less. To say no to an opportunity and take some time to take a nap.

And when more time has to be made for work, most of it comes from your sleeping time. “Sleep is for losers”, and “I can live off 4 hours of sleep” are some of the phrases you would hear a lot from such people. In fact, studies have shown that more sleep doesn’t hinder productivity, it actually increases it.

In a famous study of the best violinists around the world, it was found that the exceptional ones spend more hours practicing than the average student. What’s interesting is that the second most important factor that came out of that study was sleep. The best violinists slept an average of 8.6 hours every day. They even spent a total of 3 hours a week in afternoon naps. Sleep helped them regenerate and made their practice even more efficient.

“Our highest priority should be to protect our ability to prioritize.”

So before you go on spreading yourself too thin and doing all that you can do, consider this — Do a few things less today to do more tomorrow.

This post is part of my 365 Day Project for 2019. Read about it here

Yesterday’s blog — Morse Code