How to be productive when you're sleep deprived

It’s 1am, I can’t sleep, and the alarm is set for 06:45. Tomorrow will be rough.

So here I am, eating a bowl of cereal and wondering how I’m going to get everything done tomorrow. As someone who literally has a YouTube channel about productivity and personal development, this goes against everything I teach. But guess what? Life happens, and sometimes you still have to get stuff done while functioning on barely any sleep.

Step #1 - Plan your day for the most pathetic part of yourself

Don’t overshoot, seriously. We already over-estimate what we can do in a day, let alone when we only have 3 brain cells cracking around up there. Plan your day as if it’s for someone who is chronically lazy and pathologically undisciplined. This means identifying the most important thing you need to accomplish. Thing. Singular. Not the 47 things you “should” do. We aren’t shooting for quantity here, just quality.

Step #2 - Create backup plans for when you crash

Once you get up and going, your momentum will carry you most of the day. But inevitably you will have energy crashes at the worst possible moments. Usually right when you are getting somewhere on a project or closing a business deal. We love that for us.

Solution? Plan ahead for them. Have a few tasks in the back of your head that you can do without much effort or focus, but that still need to be done. When you crash, unless you can take a nap, pull out one of those tasks to occupy yourself with. Whatever you do, don’t do nothing. Once you stop moving it’s 10x harder to get started again. For me, this looks like:

• Do laundry

• Cleaning

• Mow the yard

• Meal prep

• Setup studio

Make sure you only do these when you crash and can’t do anything else. Otherwise, you’ll spend the whole day doing insignificant tasks because they’re easy. That’s why #1 is to get you focused on the one thing that is most important for the day.

Step #3 - Get out in public

I mean this literally. Get out of your cubicle and get somewhere with wide open space. Nature is great. Or in a place with hustle and bustle, like a coffee shop. Don’t ask me why, but wide spaces and groups of people help with alertness. Use this to your advantage. I worked for months with almost no sleep largely because I worked with a group of people. Terrible for my health, but it’s an example of how groups carry energy.

Step #4 - Get moving

I’ll be the first to admit that exercise when you’re low on sleep is the worst. If you can get a workout in it will help your energy stabilize a bit throughout the day. If you don’t feel up for a workout, just remember, that the energy with which you move your physical body affects the energy of your mind. I’m not trying to get all Tony Robbins on you here, but seriously, if you walk around acting like a zombie don’t be surprised when you feel like one. Put a little pep in your step, hold your head up, and keep your shoulders back. You will feel better.

Step #5 - Avoid emotionally intense situations

Sleep is a system for emotional therapy and regulation. Realize you're not gonna be well equipt to handle situations that require a lot of emotional awareness. The last thing you need is to misread a situation and handle it poorly because you ate cereal and wrote a newsletter instead of sleeping. De-escalate as much as you can and try to reschedule or delegate the unavoidable.

Good luck. You’ll need it. And get back to baseline as soon as possibe.