

A Guide to Optimized Napping - masuidrive
http://priceonomics.com/a-guide-to-optimized-napping/

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iambateman
My experience in American corporate is characterized by management organized
to eek out every last bit of productivity.

What _doesn 't_ make any sense is management's typical blindness toward the
reality of the mid-afternoon nap. 5-hour energy is making millions because we
won't slow down and let our bodies rest in the afternoon when we biologically
need a few minutes to recover.

It seems a company that fully embraces the productivity gains of a half hour
nap would be both successful and loved by employees. But I would be chastised
for taking a half hour nap in the middle of the afternoon.

~~~
PeterWhittaker
_My experience in American corporate is characterized by management organized
to eek out every last bit of productivity._

Should that perhaps read: "...management organized to eek out every last bit
of activity"?

There is a bias in favour of 7.5 or 8 (or more) hours of "active work", that
is, "doing stuff", and many workers figure out how to fill their day with
activity in the guise of productivity. Eventually management realizes workers
have more time than they need, send in efficiency experts, people are laid off
and tasks reassigned, and the cycle begins anew.

Workers tied to tightly synced processes, e.g., production lines, don't have
this experience, generally, they are basically self-maintaining production
machines themselves (no insult intended, some are highly skilled, but they
plugged into an assembly line doing work machines cannot yet do - or for which
capable machines are too expensive).

For the rest of the working world, let's baldly and boldly and wrongly say
there are two other types of workers, so-called knowledge workers and all
others (service industry agents, social workers, etc., etc.).

The latter are effectively in a process-oriented workflow whose event timings
are unpredictable but broadly known. Escaping the activity trap would require
data and prediction and flexibility that may simply be unfeasible with
processes that are nearly 100% person dependent and person oriented. As long
as management knows this, and accepts it, then there should be less need to
fill in time appearing active, because productivity will occur when it needs
to.

But when management loses sight of this, all manner of upset happens.

For the broad knowledge worker class, the solution is milestone-based
management, with reasonable consideration given for reasonable downtime, since
time spent not on the problem, whatever it is, is often the best time spent on
the problem, because of the flashes of insight and mental rest that occur when
not working so hard on whatever it is.

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dbbolton
On the subject of all-nighters and sleep debt:

You might be surprised at what a difference just a few hours of sleep + and
afternoon nap can make. The downside is that it's really hard to wake up at
that point (due to sleep inertia as the article calls it) and you feel really
crappy- probably crappy enough that you might think "I'd feel better if I had
just stayed up", and you wouldn't be wrong.

However, the upside is that you will be much more clear-headed _later on_ than
if you had stayed up. My personal guess is that after about 3 hours, most of
the neurotransmitter metabolite soup has been cleaned up in your brain, and
the rest of the normal sleep cycle is maintenance and repair (very important,
but not 100% essential to basic functioning for a typical 8-hour work period).

I always ask myself whether I really need to be up all night or I could afford
to spare a few hours for sleep.

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codex
I can only sleep when I'm extremely tired. I could use a daily nap but I just
can't fall asleep; the mind races instead. Any tips?

~~~
prostoalex
This will be on a longish side, since it's a book, but first you need to
understand _why_ the mind is racing and _why_ it's undesirable.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_Now](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_Now)

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primitivesuave
My friend who works in industrial engineering told me that at an assembly
plant in Japan, around 1 pm they will turn off the lights for 30 minutes so
all the workers on the floor can take a nap.

[http://biznik.com/articles/afternoon-nap-is-the-new-trend-
in...](http://biznik.com/articles/afternoon-nap-is-the-new-trend-in-
productivity)

~~~
niccl
I did a week's contract at ZyXel in Taiwan. Same thing. Once I'd got in to the
swing of it, it really helped me to keep focused during some long days

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saosebastiao
I tried reading the article but my ADHD started a fistfight with me. I did,
however, look at this guy's kickstarter, and was pleasantly surprised to find
someone execute on an idea that I've had in the past and have never been able
to find. I don't really bother with pre-ordering things, but I will definitely
get one when they are released.

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noelwelsh
I think naps are great, and agree with the 20mins or 90mins time they advocate
-- from my own experience this works.

On the other hand, as a parent of young child the suggestion that I have
sufficient control over my days to be able to nap is amusing.

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ourmandave
I lay awake wondering if I'm napping properly.

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futurist
Optimized napping? This isn't clever or informative, so I'm not sure why
people spend their time reading this stuff, never mind write it.

