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Optimizing my sleep around Claude usage limits

mattwie.se

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Re: Optimizing my sleep around Claude usage limits

#51

Post by mckn1ght »

versteegen wrote: post #33
mareko wrote: post #18

I'm impressed by your determination. A while back, I had a big paper deadline a week away and knew I didn’t have enough time to finish without sacrificing sleep. Rather than cutting my sleep short, I decided to stick with 7–8 hours of rest and instead lengthen my wake window. I worked out a schedule that gave me six nights of sleep across seven days. It meant waking up at stranger and stranger times as the week went…

I'm surprised to hear that that schedule worked well. Even if you woke feeling well-rested, what did you feel like towards the end of the day, at your normal/previous sleep time? Personally in that situation I would (and do) get plenty of sleep every night and then skip the final night. I find the fatigue from a lot of lost sleep normally doesn't hit me in full until the second day after, and the final-day panic is e…

I’ve tried this because I’ve long thought my circadian cycle is just a bit longer than average, where I just don’t feel tired until late at night, and traveling westward feels great because I can take an extra long day. Waking up early on a regular schedule is hard for me generally, like, I can do it but I feel braindead. Eastward jet lag of 3-6 hours is awful if I have to do stuff in the mornings.

So I tried a complete “cycle” of 28 hour days until I realigned with the normal day. Which happens to be the same thing GP did. LCM(24, 28) = 168 which is 7 days with 6 cycles. Roughly 19 hours waking and 9 hours sleeping. I did let myself sleep longer instead of holding to 7-8 hours like GP.

It definitely felt weird because my wife wasn’t on the schedule, but I didn’t feel super sleep deprived. I’m sure with multiple complete cycles you’d see more adverse effects, so it’s probably best to only do this very sparingly. Maybe napping during the wake period could alleviate issues.

Re: Optimizing my sleep around Claude usage limits

#52

Post by dalemhurley »

You know Cursor is giving away unlimited GPT-5 this week?

You could just work 24x7 and Vibe code yourself to a trillion dollars.

In all seriousness, you need to rest properly, you will be more productive and make less mistakes and have less rework.

Finally, if you are using Claude to get your "React component to hydrate correctly", you are not being very efficient in using AI as a coding agent.

I wrote a post about using Full.CX MCP that will build complete features for you with test etc. https://dalehurley.com/posts/fullcxmcp

Re: Optimizing my sleep around Claude usage limits

#54

Post by schmookeeg »

cookiengineer wrote: post #50
schmookeeg wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you have the problem that you are never able to do coder.Health++ for bank.Money-- afterwards. Can you expound on this for me? This rule is not at all obvious to me. I'm curious what perspective this hails from :) For example, most of my career, I will take 6+ months off between particularly intense work crunches for contracts/startups/jobs. I find the time off restorative to the point where I get restless for the…

> I find the time off restorative to the point where I get restless for the next crunch. That is a sign of addiction, not a sign of balance. The issues I have with this "crunching it" mentality now (post-burnouts) is that even with some time off afterwards you'll pay the price with physical health. Just the heart issues alone that you'll get because of the absurd and constant stress levels are now for me an indicator…

Thank you for expounding, but man, I have so many "wait, what? who?" reactions to that narrative.

I'm addicted to coding, not work. I know this because I've tried other jobs, even in late career, and they sucked in comparison and brought me no joy.

"The company" is mine, so yeah, probably it doesn't care about me, but it's definitely not dropping me without consent. :)

48, soon 49, heart still going. Not even sure what that's referring to. I don't feel stressed in these crunches, I feel excited! I build cool shit! They pay me to build cool shit! They pay me way too much to build cool shit!

I guess I don't know what I would balance that excitement with. I have cool hobbies too, and those have their place, but... I just don't resonate with your take and view on the industry.

IF someone hated coding, creating, or the tech industry itself -- then I could squint and get behind your balance suggestions. For them. :)

Thanks for sharing the perspective though. If nothing else, you're fanning my gratitude flame.

Re: Optimizing my sleep around Claude usage limits

#56

Post by cookiengineer »

schmookeeg wrote: post #54
cookiengineer wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I find the time off restorative to the point where I get restless for the next crunch. That is a sign of addiction, not a sign of balance. The issues I have with this "crunching it" mentality now (post-burnouts) is that even with some time off afterwards you'll pay the price with physical health. Just the heart issues alone that you'll get because of the absurd and constant stress levels are now for me an indicator…

Thank you for expounding, but man, I have so many "wait, what? who?" reactions to that narrative. I'm addicted to coding, not work. I know this because I've tried other jobs, even in late career, and they sucked in comparison and brought me no joy. "The company" is mine, so yeah, probably it doesn't care about me, but it's definitely not dropping me without consent. :) 48, soon 49, heart still going. Not even sure wh…

Don't get me wrong, I still love to code, and I still work on open source projects and I still believe in a future where sharing of mutual contributions lead to a better outcome for everyone. That's not my point.

I also am building up my own company for the last couple years. But I want it to be a sustainable company that promotes a healthy lifestyle and that doesn't overwork its employees, and one that doesn't aim for 2 years turnover/rehiring of staff...because I think these are the typical effects of a toxic work environment, and reflects the values I don't agree with, both on a personal and a professional level.

In the end we both have a different leading style, I guess!?

Re: Optimizing my sleep around Claude usage limits

#57

Post by TruePath »

cookiengineer wrote: post #25

You seem to be a young fella, so let me tell you this: Every time you do coder.Health-- for bank.Money++, you have the problem that you are never able to do coder.Health++ for bank.Money-- afterwards. Never sacrifice health for money. Never. Every idea that needs to be worked on more than 50 hours a week is an idea not worth working on. I know how it is, I've been there myself. You'll be reluctant to listen now. But…

Some of the happiest and most satisfied people I know are academics who work 80+ hours a week because they love what they do. You don't need to sacrifice health to work more than 50 hours a week. And realistically there is no long term health damage from what he is doing. And yes you can trade money for better health, though in the first world you rapidly hit diminishing returns but if your sleep deprivation can make the difference between being able to afford good health care or moving to an area with less pollution it absolutely can trade off like that.

Re: Optimizing my sleep around Claude usage limits

#59

Post by TruePath »

It is worth remembering that before artificial lighting the normal sleep pattern is to sleep in two segments and get up in the middle to have sex, talk, do some chores, change the baby etc. And I believe a normal sleep cycle is something like 90 minutes so if you *really* sleep in 3 hour chunks that's actually probably healthier than the normal us sleep schedule. I mean many of us find the usual wake at 7am alarm schedule to be pretty damn brutal. However, if what you actually do is kinda lie around check your phone in bed etc and then get blasted awake by an alarm that's a different story.

Re: Optimizing my sleep around Claude usage limits

#60

Post by sierra1011 »

mareko wrote: post #18

I'm impressed by your determination. A while back, I had a big paper deadline a week away and knew I didn’t have enough time to finish without sacrificing sleep. Rather than cutting my sleep short, I decided to stick with 7–8 hours of rest and instead lengthen my wake window. I worked out a schedule that gave me six nights of sleep across seven days. It meant waking up at stranger and stranger times as the week went…

Ah, the classic 28 hour day

https://xkcd.com/320/

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