I experienced this dilemma a lot as a kid. Should I sacrifice sleep for training/film/reading/ fill in the blank with any other task that is worth being disciplined with.
Many of you are probably screaming “YES!” “Sleep must be sacrificed!” “Team no sleep!” “Discipline!”
And many times my answer to myself was “yes.”
But let me explain the argument I would always have with myself. It is always said that diet and sleep make up the only 1% of control you have over your height. This was a huge concern for me, being a 5’9'' aspiring basketball player. The times when rationalization won out, this was the reason why.
The question of whether or not sleep should be sacrificed is not as simple as it sounds. Like most things, it’s not a simple yes or no, black and white question.
See, there will always be certain instances where you should sacrifice your sleep to be disciplined, accelerate progress, and get things done.
However, sleep is truly important. I mentioned it in my posts on Baseline Habits For Everyday Life and My Top Five Recovery Methods. Sleeping the minimum number of hours per night required for you to function is not a habit you want to get into.
So how do you approach this? How do you know when to sacrifice sleep and when not to?
Well, first of all, you avoid having this problem and having to make this decision in the first place if you can. Most times this dilemma will arise because you neglected to get something done, usually because of one of these four reasons, or variations of them:
You were not focused/disciplined enough during the day.
You forgot something important and left it out of your schedule.
You botched your schedule in some other way such as trying to get too many things done or underestimating how long something would take.
You had your schedule changed by someone or something with power over you.
Now let’s examine each of these
The cause of not being focused/disciplined enough during the day should not be solved with sacrificing sleep. It should be solved by getting your shit together. I know this will be controversial, but sacrificing sleep in this case will only lead to you being less focused the following day. Treat the problem, not the symptoms.
The times you forget something important and leave it out of your schedule should also not be fixed with sacrificing sleep. Stop forgetting stuff.
In cases where you don’t forget anything, don’t lose focus, don’t have your schedule changed for you, and still don’t get everything done- do not sacrifice sleep. Learn from the experience and adjust next time. Times when you stay genuinely and legitimately focused all day but don’t get everything done should not be punished by taking away sleep.
When you have your schedule changed for you and you miss one of your habits- sacrifice sleep. These situations are those tough times in life where things are just inconvenient. If you want to talk about “sacrificing sleep” and “discipline,” this should be the primary situation discussed.
After all, there is no glory in recruiting discipline and inciting mental toughness and willpower to achieve a task that should have been done without second thought. It is only when plans change through no fault of your own that the ability to stay disciplined suggests something special.
To recap the above list of reasons: The first three; do not sacrifice sleep; the last one; do sacrifice sleep.
Essentially, reasons one and two should not exist. Reason three should happen less and less as you get more experience with making schedules. Even reason four should start to diminish as you get more power in life. However, this one can never completely go away, though, because situations develop and change unexpectedly.
You could also look at it this way:
The situations you can’t avoid or don’t have power over- sacrifice sleep. The situations that you have control over, where you messed up- eliminate them. Invest time into your planning and strategizing skills. Eliminating these situations will also get easier as you get more experienced in life.
Another key here is knowing what your priorities are, being realistic about what you can accomplish in a given time span, and having a finite number of non-negotiables.
Having just a few goals will help decrease the chances that you forgot the habit for one of them. This in comparison to trying to work on a million things at once. Having a few processes that get done no matter what will help with your adaptability in the case of a schedule change and prioritizing their order will allow you to rest easy knowing the most important things got done, even on a chaotic day.
I touched on this in my post about Building Discipline as an 18 Year Old.
Are there outlying exceptions to all of these? Off course. But these are general guidelines that will be able to help you.
Outside of your few main habits and processes, be disciplined about getting sleep.
Athlete-Student
BucketsoverBooks
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