A simple lesson I keep needing to learn as an entrepreneur is The importance of sleep in a startup.

Leo Widrich writes:

A discovery that took me quite a while to understand is that your productivity doesn’t come in hours. It comes with the energy you have every day. A great book that Joel made me aware of  titled The Power Of Full Engagement, puts it this way:

“Managing energy, not time, is the key to high performance and personal renewal.”

I am sure you have realized this before: you can complete tasks that can take you hours if you are tired, in minutes if you are fresh and fully focused.

Embracing the single idea, that there is a set of highly important tasks you need to get done, not a number of hours in the day, you need to be working, is what can make all the difference.

Amen. Also, this is right on:

Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. ~ Cyril Parkinson

Hallelujah!

I will reread this line from Bakadeusuyo... Sleep loss means mind loss.

...until I can make good sleeping a habit. Memo to self: Get enough sleep.

And then Startup Bus gave the opposite advice. :)

If you work out a lot, you quickly are confronted with the fact that without enough sleep and proper nutrition, you might as well not even go to the weight room because you won't be making any forward progress. This goes double when you're over 35! It really makes you think... huh, if this is how much my PHYSICAL performance is suffering, how much is my MENTAL performance suffering?

Good vision is just as important as good rest.

People always talk about sleep, whether it's all-nighters or the opposite. Why does noone ever talk about regular vision checkups? I have particularly bad eyes and if my contacts are acting up, it's a tremendous productivity sink...

If you haven't been to the eye doctor in the past year, you've waited too long.