Kevin Vogelsang

A little over 24 hours ago, I began the “Uberman Sleep Schedule,” 20 minute naps every 4 hours.  And despite the lack of sleep, thus far, I like it.

Yesterday at 11PM I took my first 20 minute rest.  Since I wasn’t used to the schedule I didn’t fall asleep.  I’ve never been able to fall asleep quickly, so the same happened for my next two naps at 3AM and 7Am–I rested but no sleep.

At 8AM, I went for a run with Ovid.  I was feeling tired prior to that, but the run got me going.  I didn’t actually sleep until my next rest period at 11AM, when I slept for approximately twenty minutes.  This was some great sleep, and I felt much better afterwards.

I did a good amount of work this afternoon getting Vogel Labs setup* and went and lifted with Ryan at 2PM.  I didn’t sleep any during my 3PM or 7PM rests.  At 9:30, I went and played a pretty tough game of pickup basketball (my team won) and was quite exhausted afterwards, which was unrelated to my sleep.

After the game, I hurried home, took a quick  shower, and hopped in bed for my 11PM rest.  Again, no sleep.  Body still can’t fall asleep that quickly.

Despite the lack of sleep, I don’t feel all that bad.  I’ve stayed up all night before and usually I feel terrible.  After my 11PM rest, I’d say I felt pretty darn good, although I felt tired very quickly.

To keep the record straight, I haven’t been using any stimulants during any of this .

There’s a few interesting insights I’ve already discovered.  First, I’m not feeling too bad, although I do feel quite sleep deprived.  I credit this to a few reasons:

1) I really enjoy the schedule. By the time I start feeling really tired, it’s time for a rest period, which is gratifying.

2) I feel much more productive, and I don’t think this is necessarily related to having a lot more waking hours.  Rather, I think it’s more of a mental trick related to cutting the day up into smaller 4 hour cycles.

In his book “How to Stop Worrying and Start Living,” Dale Carnegie spoke about how many, very successful people lived in “day-tight” compartments–they didn’t devote their mental energy to worrying about all the things they had to do tomorrow, nor did they worry about all the things they didn’t do yesterday.  Instead, the successful people that Dale came to know each did their work and accomplished a few things every day, but focused completely on those daily triumphs.  If you can just focus on enjoying and completing the daily tasks at hand, you’re in a good position.

I think the Uberman Schedule enforces this.  Instead of having 7 days per week, the Uberman has 42 smaller, more manageable “day-tight” compartments.  I find myself getting up, eating, and working on a few things until I get tired and take a rest.  The structure is very beneficial to just focusing on the task at hand.  It also takes away the inefficiency of working for long periods of time; for each compartment, I end up with about 2.5 hours of real work time.

3) I spend no time trying to manage my time, nor do I spend energy worrying about having enough time.  I’ve always got a lot of things I’m working on, so I generally end up putting a lot of energy into managing my time.  On this schedule, having enough time isn’t the worry, and the structure is beneficial to tackling one sizable task per cycle.

4) Even if I don’t sleep, my rest periods are 20 minutes of glorious, solace.  I feel as if I’m in a deep meditation.  Nothing is on my mind, and I simply rest.  I don’t remember a time when this happened.  Usually the wheels seem to turn 24/7.

It’s still early, and I may just be high off the challenge.  But, so far, so good.

-Kevin
11.18.2009

*I’ll hopefully have grounds to talk more about this in the coming months.  I will say, I’m already enjoying the project though.