

How I Made a 26-Hour Day - andrewdumont
http://andrewdumont.me/how-i-made-a-26-hour-day

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guynamedloren
Linkbait headline.

tldr; I realized I am more productive when not interrupted during tasks that
require thinking (specifically, ignoring phone calls and emails while
working).

I thought this was going to be about an _actual_ 26 hour day, which is
entirely possible (and a very interesting subject).. but don't even think
about maintaining a 26 hour schedule in 24 hours of time.

~~~
abhpdk
_"I thought this was going to be about an actual 26 hour day, which is
entirely possible (and a very interesting subject).."_

Do you mean sleeping 'x' amount of time every '26-x' hours? That _is_ a very
interesting notion. It creates an illusion of having more hours in a day. Of
course, this comes at cost. If you were to sleep at 12.00am one day, you will
have to sleep at 2am the next, and 4am the day after that and so on.

~~~
guynamedloren
Yep, exactly that. The idea is to sleep the same amount of time as you
normally would (8 hrs, for example) but stay awake longer.

With a 28 hour day you'd come full circle in a week (I think), but with 6 days
in your week instead of 7, and 120 hrs awake vs 112 hrs.

Edit: oops, just noticed jgeralnik beat me to it, with illustrations and all!

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eCa
> it can take up to 23 minutes and 15 seconds to get back on task after an
> interruption.

At first I thought that that is a ridiculously precise time, but it turns out
to be a mis-quote. The source [1] claims that that is the _average_ time to
get back on task.

[1] [http://www.fastcompany.com/944128/worker-interrupted-cost-
ta...](http://www.fastcompany.com/944128/worker-interrupted-cost-task-
switching)

~~~
andrewdumont
Nice catch, updated!

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madoublet
As a new dad, I can attest that you can survive (and be productive) on a lot
less sleep then you think. The trick is that you have to be a lot more active
in the day, so you are actually tired at night and can fall asleep fast. And,
you have to avoid stuff like alcohol as it really messes up your sleep cycle.

~~~
enraged_camel
I find that small amounts of alcohol (like a glass of red wine) actually help
me sleep well. Anything more than that however causes me to wake up
continuously throughout the night and have a headache in the morning.

There's also a trick I learned a couple of years ago that helps you fall
asleep when you're lying in bed drunk with your eyes closed and, as the saying
goes, "the world keeps turning." That trick is to put one foot on the floor.
That will stabilize your sense of balance and you'll be able to fall asleep
very quickly. (Also works if you're queasy with things like food poisoning.)

~~~
madoublet
Ha, that is a cool hack. It has been awhile since I had that feeling, but I
remember it well. A beer puts me right to sleep now as well, but that is less
convenient if the baby wakes up.

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seanalltogether
if you're going to work out, I would really suggest going first thing in the
morning. It has such a dramatically different effect on your day versus
working out at night. I'm not a morning person either but I'll never work out
at night again.

~~~
guynamedloren
I usually work out at night but have always heard that working out in the
morning is better.. thinking about making the switch. I'm not a morning person
either.

What are the benefits? More energy/zest during the day?

~~~
sharkweek
Not a morning person myself, but switched to working out in the AM (especially
beneficial here in Seattle where it's dark on both sides of the workday for 6
months of the year). The rush from working out will carry you powerfully into
the rest of your day and for the most part get you off on a stronger start.

From a health perspective too, it's a lot easier to "refuel" your body
throughout the day after a morning workout as opposed to at night.

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zobzu
Note that the post says "context switching is the issue". That's probably
true.

I and probably many others too, developed some natural defense against it. I
just keep thinking about my task while half-listening to whatever comes up and
unless its really that important, just keep it in a corner of my head (or if
its a phone conversation, just give basic preplanned replies which take no
thinking and make the opposite party happy. I just can't help it, it's
automatic).

That's probably because i'm passionate about my tasks and rather introverted,
tho. But I though it's interesting to think about it that way too.

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g2e
A few things are important in my opinion regarding productivity:

1) Minimal lying in bed. If you're in your bed, you should be sleeping. If you
can't fall asleep find out why and fix it.

2) Don't get distracted. Of course, easier said than done but you can
definitely minimize any possibilites.

3) Experimentation with sleep. Try sleeping a little bit less and less until
you find the minimal amount required for you to be refreshed.

4) Continuously reflect and ask yourself if there's a better or more efficient
way of doing something.

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gizmo686
As others have pointed out, this post is not about a 26 hour day, but rather a
more efficient 24 hour day. A find that I get productivity boost by actually
leaving the 24 hour day, and sleeping when I get tired (which works out to be
about 25.5 hour days). This does lead to jet-lag like effects when I need to
work around schedules, but avoids alot of time idling awake in bed.

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CKKim
The wild misuse of "26-Hour Day" here would make me question doing business
with this person. So many startup folk who have made a good first impression
on me have blogs full of clangers like this, which should have been a clue as
to problems of comprehension and honesty I would experience with them down the
line.

~~~
andrewdumont
Like I said in the 3rd paragraph of the post. "Of course, I'm not speaking
literally."

I titled this post in this way because it really does make you feel like the
day is extended by two more hours. Not literally, I'm taking about
psychologically, which is often just as valuable.

~~~
CKKim
You did, and I think this submission found me in a mean mood. For people who
have read about polyphasic sleep etc. the phrase "26-Hour Day" has an
intuitive meaning which led to disappointment on clicking to the article.

I stand by my point about entrepreneurs' blogs providing clues to their
character, but I retract the judgement on your use of "26-Hour Day". You could
have been clearer in the title rather than waiting until the third paragraph,
but then there is a reason you seller types are what you are: you're good at
hooking people in; after all, you got me to read the article.

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mgkimsal
Damn... I was expecting something along the lines of timecube2013 or something
revolutionary. Something that most scientists wouldn't understand. Something
only Andrew Dumont would understand. :/

~~~
andrewdumont
I can't talk about my time machine, sadly. :)

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petercooper
Not always an option but many employers support them.. If you can get a high
quality 20 minute nap in the middle of the day, you could cut some time from
your overnight sleep.

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qwerta
How about 28 hour day?

<http://www.limedaring.com/hacking-your-week-the-28-hour-day/>

~~~
bryanlarsen
If you use a 2 week schedule, you can make it a 26 hour day. Arranging a nice
schedule is harder, but it is possible.

I experimented a lot with sleep when I was younger. 26 hour days, 28 hour
days, uberman. Now that I'm middle aged, I have no problems with sleep. I
attribute this to several changes I made:

1) stopping my caffeine habit

2) no screen time before bed. reading fiction on a phone is OK, but no more
than that.

3) getting old made waking up early a lot easier

4) My uberman experimentation gave me the ability of an infantry man to fall
asleep quickly whenever and wherever I want

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eertami
> 8:30 - HOLY HELL, FREE BLOCK

He has only 1 hour a day of "free time"? Surely that can't be in anyway
normal.

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Kiro
Don't you eat anything before going to the gym?

~~~
andrewdumont
I've tried going with and without food before the gym, but settled on without.
I feel more alert and less sluggish when I don't eat before working out.

If you're strength training, you may run into issues though.

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seanliuxx
doing exercise on 5:15am does harm to health, doesn't it?

~~~
ramblerman
If you're completely out of shape I guess I wouldn't recommend setting your
alarm at 5:15 AM to commence vigorous jumping jacks.

But the generalisation that therefore 5:15 am workouts are detrimental to
health is ludicrous.

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kamaal
I've hacked this productivity schedule bit quite a lot, for me the biggest
time sink has always been commute time. While I'm working from home, that is
when I'm most productive.

Needless to say the author's advice is correct. Waking up early helps. And
sometimes helps a lot. If you absolutely want to work like a machine. Then
there is a schedule that has worked for me.

    
    
        3 AM    - Wake up, tend to hygiene. Excercise etc
        4 AM    - Start Work.
        9 AM    - Break fast/Newspaper/News
        10 AM   - Continue Work.
        2 PM    - Lunch
        3 PM    - Continue Work.
        8 PM    - Dinner.
        8:45 PM - Review current days work, plan for tomorrow.
        9 PM    - Sleep.
    

Note: This schedule works because there is no time spent traveling, I'm not
married and I don't have other errands to run during the day.

If you notice an another thing there is no such a term like meetings in the
whole schedule.

Some more tweaks/extensions to this exercise. Every Saturday I sit down to
review how the past week went. I also put down clearly defined measurable
goals which I want to achieve by next Saturday. These tasks are generally
aligned to help me achieve monthly and yearly goals.

The 5 years goals, and decade goals are something of a different thing.
Generally mine are financial goals. And are easy to keep a track of.

Now given I absolutely must have to travel many times in the week to office.
And inevitable meetings creep in, this schedule doable only once or twice a
week.

~~~
thewarrior
What about rest and recreation ?

~~~
firefoxman1
Machines don't need either :)

I'm guessing that's not his schedule 7 days a week. I think that's just the
ideal productivity schedule.

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lucian303
Or you could wake up at the same time and not answer emails in the morning to
achieve the same effect (since it's context switching that you're trying to
avoid).

Also, I fail to see how this makes it a 26-Hour Day.

