could be that you do care, really, but have lost sight of the goal (personal, financial, etc.). Or it could be that you have nothing invested in this job and perhaps somebody else would be better suited to take it on. You know it can’t be right to hog something you don’t want to do.
HERE’S AN IDEA FOR YOU …
If you realise that it’s just a question of rolling up your sleeves and getting on with it, then pick a time for the job right now. Make sure you’re not going to be distracted—because you know you’ll be more than happy to abandon something you’ve put off this long.
26 YOU SNOOZE…YOU WIN!
‘Plenty of time to sleep when you’re dead’, say clubbers, rad dudes and candle-burners generally, but few of them realise that Benjamin Franklin beat them to it by more than a couple of centuries when he said ‘there will be sleeping enough in the grave’.
However, Franklin probably didn’t mean that it was cool to fuel your all-nighters with Red Bull and vodka—but he did have a horror of wasted time and argued strongly that ‘how much more than is necessary do we spend in sleep! Forgetting that the sleeping fox catches no poultry’.
DEFINING IDEA …
My sense is that planned, permitted, endorsed napping by management is still rare.
~ DAVID DINGES, SLEEP RESEARCHER
Modern foxes may be interested to know that research suggests that while the brain definitely needs some occasional down time, it almost certainly doesn’t require ten hours of one-to-one with the duvet. In actual fact short ‘power naps’ of twenty or thirty minutes are probably all you need to refresh the grey matter and power up your productivity accordingly. NASA researchers have found that a thirty-minute power nap resulted in better scores from volunteers taking IQ tests as a gauge of mental agility. The results were quite marked—their scores were up to 40% better, in fact.
Power-napping proponents also point to lower stress rates and incidence of heart disease amongst those who regularly practise the art. None of this will surprise people who come from Latin cultures, for whom the siesta has long been seen as an essential part of the daily routine. The benefits of a siesta will also be immediately apparent to anyone who has had to present something important—or indeed, anything—to that first meeting after lunch.
All of this should not be seen as an excuse for the chronically lazy among us, however, as most research suggests that there is an upper limit to the length of a nap for optimum effectiveness. After about forty-five minutes you might well still be snugly asleep but you’re not doing any more to boost your brain.
There is one major downside to the power nap, however, which is persuading your colleagues that you are in fact upping your productivity rather than slacking off like Homer Simpson. Whilst there are one or two work environments that have accepted the power nap, you may find that your particular boss takes a dim view of it. If you’re lucky enough to have a boss who sports a droopy moustache, an oversized sombrero and a poncho then try suggesting a snooze lounge for tag-team napping.
And if you have no success, and you don’t have a dedicated snooze room, there’s even a thing called an Executive Hammock which is a tiny nylon foldaway hammock intended for use in the office, maybe strung up between the filing cabinets. Or if you can’t find a suitable fixing point then you could simply have two flunkies hold up the ends while you refresh yourself…
HERE’S AN IDEA FOR YOU …
There are phone/iPod-friendly mp3 files specifically for snoozing along to. These consist of twenty or thirty minutes of white noise (intended to help drown out external sound) followed by a series of gentle waking noises to bring you back from the land of nod. Search online for free samples; try www.placebo.serv.co.za/?page_id=7 .
27 THE ART OF THE TART; RATE TART QUICK START
‘The borrower is a slave to the lender’ , as
HERE’S AN IDEA FOR YOU …
If you realise that it’s just a question of rolling up your sleeves and getting on with it, then pick a time for the job right now. Make sure you’re not going to be distracted—because you know you’ll be more than happy to abandon something you’ve put off this long.
26 YOU SNOOZE…YOU WIN!
‘Plenty of time to sleep when you’re dead’, say clubbers, rad dudes and candle-burners generally, but few of them realise that Benjamin Franklin beat them to it by more than a couple of centuries when he said ‘there will be sleeping enough in the grave’.
However, Franklin probably didn’t mean that it was cool to fuel your all-nighters with Red Bull and vodka—but he did have a horror of wasted time and argued strongly that ‘how much more than is necessary do we spend in sleep! Forgetting that the sleeping fox catches no poultry’.
DEFINING IDEA …
My sense is that planned, permitted, endorsed napping by management is still rare.
~ DAVID DINGES, SLEEP RESEARCHER
Modern foxes may be interested to know that research suggests that while the brain definitely needs some occasional down time, it almost certainly doesn’t require ten hours of one-to-one with the duvet. In actual fact short ‘power naps’ of twenty or thirty minutes are probably all you need to refresh the grey matter and power up your productivity accordingly. NASA researchers have found that a thirty-minute power nap resulted in better scores from volunteers taking IQ tests as a gauge of mental agility. The results were quite marked—their scores were up to 40% better, in fact.
Power-napping proponents also point to lower stress rates and incidence of heart disease amongst those who regularly practise the art. None of this will surprise people who come from Latin cultures, for whom the siesta has long been seen as an essential part of the daily routine. The benefits of a siesta will also be immediately apparent to anyone who has had to present something important—or indeed, anything—to that first meeting after lunch.
All of this should not be seen as an excuse for the chronically lazy among us, however, as most research suggests that there is an upper limit to the length of a nap for optimum effectiveness. After about forty-five minutes you might well still be snugly asleep but you’re not doing any more to boost your brain.
There is one major downside to the power nap, however, which is persuading your colleagues that you are in fact upping your productivity rather than slacking off like Homer Simpson. Whilst there are one or two work environments that have accepted the power nap, you may find that your particular boss takes a dim view of it. If you’re lucky enough to have a boss who sports a droopy moustache, an oversized sombrero and a poncho then try suggesting a snooze lounge for tag-team napping.
And if you have no success, and you don’t have a dedicated snooze room, there’s even a thing called an Executive Hammock which is a tiny nylon foldaway hammock intended for use in the office, maybe strung up between the filing cabinets. Or if you can’t find a suitable fixing point then you could simply have two flunkies hold up the ends while you refresh yourself…
HERE’S AN IDEA FOR YOU …
There are phone/iPod-friendly mp3 files specifically for snoozing along to. These consist of twenty or thirty minutes of white noise (intended to help drown out external sound) followed by a series of gentle waking noises to bring you back from the land of nod. Search online for free samples; try www.placebo.serv.co.za/?page_id=7 .
27 THE ART OF THE TART; RATE TART QUICK START
‘The borrower is a slave to the lender’ , as
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