To Sleep or Not To Sleep?

Sleep has been part of my schedule less and less lately.

This is largely due to this little series of skater woodblock prints I have been working on. While working on the 3rd in this skater series last night, I lost track of time (technically, this morning). Work, and getting stuff done, cuts into my sleep time.

Sleep may cut into my work time, but not sleeping cuts into my ability to be productive.

This, in a nutshell, is my dilemma. By sleeping less, I can spend more time working, but when I sleep more, the time I do work results in higher quality output.

Not Sleeping is a Fantasy

Back in college, my art school buddies and I would fantasize about a magic night that would never end. The night would go on and on, as long as we could stay awake working.

The dream was, once we fell asleep, the night would start again, and we would wake up, fully rested 8 hours later.

If we could stay up for 20 hours, 20 hours of work. 30 hours? 40 hours? That’s a lot of work to get done.

When I was getting my art degree, “who can have the most all nighters” contests were common amongst my friends and colleagues. I remember one time in particular when Richard, Luke, and I spent about 3 days in a row in the painting studio, and got a total of about 6 hours of sleep over those 3 days. We were no strangers to working long hours.

…but Back in Reality,

In college, it was easier to stay up all night working. I could sleep in and not go to class. I can’t do the same now. I can’t decide not to go to work on a whim.

My solution has been to work on this week’s project all night, and sleep in, losing my morning writing hour. The danger of this is missing the time for my second job, writing and marketing my art.

I’m working out how to work with this, and I don’t have a solution yet. My only solution has been to power through, and crash when my body tells me it needs to crash.