Productive on six hours of sleep? You’re deluding yourself, expert says • Hacker News Board

Re: Productive on six hours of sleep? You’re deluding yourself, expert says

#241

Post by wpietri » Thu, Oct 05, 2017, 4:44 AM UTC

ramirez60 wrote: post #240

I can'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'm older now, and no longer work as an engineer. I va…

Your definition of "works" is suspicious to me.

If you're saying that in the short term, short-term thinking works, sure. If you're in college and are doing a bunch of work that doesn't matter to deadlines that are entirely made up, sure, you can get away with it.

You claim that doctors do fine without enough sleep, but even doctors don't claim that any more. Doctor friends tell me it's a big focus for reform. [1] And in areas where safety is even more important, like piloting planes, they take mandatory rest even more seriously.

Software is mostly not life-critical, but I think it's uniquely bad in this regard. Doctors can bury their mistakes, but version control systems preserve ours forever. It's too easy to be negatively productive in software, and enormously easier if you're not getting enough sleep.

[1] http://www.bcmj.org/article/sleep-deprivation-among-physicia...

Re: Productive on six hours of sleep? You’re deluding yourself, expert says

#242

Post by ramirez60 » Thu, Oct 05, 2017, 4:53 AM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #241

ramirez60 wrote: post #240

I can'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'm older now, and no longer work as an engineer. I va…

Your definition of "works" is suspicious to me. If you're saying that in the short term, short-term thinking works, sure. If you're in college and are doing a bunch of work that doesn't matter to deadlines that are entirely made up, sure, you can get away with it. You claim that doctors do fine without enough sleep, but even doctors don't claim that any more. Doctor friends tell me it's a big focus for reform. [1] An…

I don't mean to claim doctors do fine without enough sleep. Doctor friends I have spoken to talk about this talk about the reforms but it is not uniformly positive. I am trying to posit that the claim that we function better with more sleep is true. But that claim is made in a vacuum. Person A operates at 100% well rested. But operating at 80% or 60% is more valuable than 0% if averaged out over time. So I can write better code when I'm well rested, sure. I agree with that. I think everyone logically will. If I have 1000 lines of code to write. And it will take me 10 hours to write it. And I have 2 days to do it. I'll spread it out over 2 days and write good code, and maybe it only end up taking 800 lines of code. But if I have 1 day to write it. I might end up writing 1200 lines of code, but still get it done in that day, it is more valuable to me, than a day later when the code doesn't matter anymore. I'd argue I'd rather a doctor save my life that day, than do a great job and make sure I never scar over two days when the option isn't there.

Medicine is a regulated industry in that the number of people trained almost precisely matches the number of jobs available. The training process is designed to prune out people who cannot function when they have to choose between life saving procedure, and doing the life saving procedure perfectly but losing the patient. It's a straw-man I know, I'm just tired of everyone being absolutely fascinated by this idea that resting is better than not resting. Isn't that just obvious? Does anyone feel like they work better when they are tired? What knowledge are we gaining by these discussions?

Re: Productive on six hours of sleep? You’re deluding yourself, expert says

#243

Post by megy » Thu, Oct 05, 2017, 4:55 AM UTC

_qbjt wrote: post #17

This is one of the reasons I hate the eight-hour work day. Between that and all of the other shit you have to do in a day (commute, chores, eating, exercise etc.), it seems like there's little to no opportunity to just have a life. I know it sounds like first world problems (people used to work 100 hour weeks), but I think our culture needs to change before we can really put the onus on people to improve their sleepi…

Also why I think people who do long commutes are missing out majorly.

Re: Productive on six hours of sleep? You’re deluding yourself, expert says

#244

Post by fiblye » Thu, Oct 05, 2017, 5:06 AM UTC

Antrikshy wrote: post #190

irrational wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Millions of years of biological imperative. The fact that you are here is proof that your ancestors were successful at procreating. Its in your genes (and your jeans).

Except I'm human and I can consciously decide not to have kids.

Humans can decide a lot of things. We're all still dumb animals driven primarily by instinct, although we like to think the levels of abstraction we put on top of those instinctual actions makes us somehow enlightened. It's a matter of what instincts are stronger: the desire to reproduce, or the desire for pleasure and comfort.

Re: Productive on six hours of sleep? You’re deluding yourself, expert says

#245

Post by ssijak » Thu, Oct 05, 2017, 5:57 AM UTC

Are there any reliable devices that can measure rem phases during sleep reliably and wake you up after 6-8 hours when the rem phase ends? And I'm not talking about sleep apps for phones which work with mics and accelerometers.

Re: Productive on six hours of sleep? You’re deluding yourself, expert says

#246

Post by photonios » Thu, Oct 05, 2017, 6:00 AM UTC

mxuribe wrote: post #70

_qbjt wrote: post #17

This is one of the reasons I hate the eight-hour work day. Between that and all of the other shit you have to do in a day (commute, chores, eating, exercise etc.), it seems like there's little to no opportunity to just have a life. I know it sounds like first world problems (people used to work 100 hour weeks), but I think our culture needs to change before we can really put the onus on people to improve their sleepi…

I'm with you all the way! I hear people talk about optimizing one's day to be more productive and "get more done in your day" so often...but honestly, between work, family responsibilities, working out a little in the gym, getting involved in side projects (either "working on the car", or working on side dev project), maybe some civic community involvement, social visits (the occasional beer with a buddy), etc...it j…

I also used to feel this way. What worked for me is to not to do some of these things. For example, I got a robot vacuum cleaner and a robot mop. For any additional cleaning, I have a cleaning lady that comes every once in a while. This saves me a couple of hours of cleaning each month. If the car breaks, or something needs to be done around the house, I hire someone to do it. Groceries are delivered according to a schedule. Saves me a couple of hours of running around the supermakt.

I am not saying this works for everyone. It works for me. Labour cost are so low here, and salaries in IT are so high that it is totally worth paying someone to do some things.

As for commuting, I picked a job that is not too far away and is extremely flexible when it comes to when I am at the office. This allows me to only travel to the office at hours at which traffic is decent. At the worst hours, it can take 45min to get to my office. If I avoid those hours, I can be there in 15 min.

Re: Productive on six hours of sleep? You’re deluding yourself, expert says

#247

Post by bonzini » Thu, Oct 05, 2017, 6:10 AM UTC

pavel_lishin wrote: post #224

nroach wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bear in mind that we segment our activity more in "modern" society. For example, in agrarian societies you didn't need to carve out time for exercise. Work was exercise. You also didn't need to carve out time for child care, because children worked alongside adults much of the time. And commuting wasn't really an issue when workplaces and residences were in the same community with minimal geographic separation. It's…

Once they got old enough, sure. Until then, women typically took care of them. Good luck working alongside an 18 month old.

Well, with 6 kids or more in each family taking care of small children was a full-time job of its own. Not to mention not having things such as a washing machine...

Re: Productive on six hours of sleep? You’re deluding yourself, expert says

#248

Post by barry-cotter » Thu, Oct 05, 2017, 6:43 AM UTC

Delmania wrote: post #170

mxuribe wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm with you all the way! I hear people talk about optimizing one's day to be more productive and "get more done in your day" so often...but honestly, between work, family responsibilities, working out a little in the gym, getting involved in side projects (either "working on the car", or working on side dev project), maybe some civic community involvement, social visits (the occasional beer with a buddy), etc...it j…

Automation never results in more leisure. It results in more specialized work and increased workloads. The sentiment expressed in the first line is why I intend to stay working remotely for as long as possible. I hated the fact I saw a drab grey cubicle farm more than my house and family.

Children are not working, students are not working, the retired are not working, depending on the household stay at home parents aren’t working that much, the unemployed are not working.

Automation and increased productivity has resulted in a lot of leisure. It’s not evenly distributed but hours worked per capita is not on an upward trend.

Re: Productive on six hours of sleep? You’re deluding yourself, expert says

#249

Post by barry-cotter » Thu, Oct 05, 2017, 6:52 AM UTC

jasonmp85 wrote: post #84

smallnamespace wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> with friends to socialize Or, sometimes, rival tribes to fight with and kill -- not everything is (necessarily) hunky-dory in every tribal society.

I have little knowledge about the truth here but I'd heard that this sort of warring stuff only ramped up after agriculture became common, no? Why kill other tribes' members unless they have a hoard of food? I suppose "to reduce competition" is one answer, but if everyone can hunt/gather for enough food, the motivation seems reduced. OTOH if I can ignore preparation for winter and just raid your village for grain sto…

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Before_Civilization

Keeley says peaceful societies are an exception. About 90-95% of known societies engage in war. Those that did not are almost universally either isolated nomadic groups (for whom flight is an option), groups of defeated refugees, or small enclaves under the protection of a larger modern state. The attrition rate of numerous close-quarter clashes, which characterize warfare in tribal warrior society, produces casualty rates of up to 60%, compared to 1% of the combatants as is typical in modern warfare.

Re: Productive on six hours of sleep? You’re deluding yourself, expert says

#250

Post by barry-cotter » Thu, Oct 05, 2017, 6:55 AM UTC

xupybd wrote: post #239

nroach wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bear in mind that we segment our activity more in "modern" society. For example, in agrarian societies you didn't need to carve out time for exercise. Work was exercise. You also didn't need to carve out time for child care, because children worked alongside adults much of the time. And commuting wasn't really an issue when workplaces and residences were in the same community with minimal geographic separation. It's…

I think the lack of children working along side adults is a great shame. Not that I'm a fan of child labour but I think there is something that adds to a child's self esteem when they take on responsibilities along side adults. I know they complain and don't often like the labour, but I think it brings a sense of purpose and belonging that many young people seem to lack.

That lack of purpose is the point. If you can acculturate children to doing what they accurately perceive as pointless, joyless, regimented tasks and get them used to being told what to do, when to do it and how, to being ranked by an authority figure then school has done its job. An industrial society cannot function with people who won’t just put up and shut up.