The Most UNDERRATED Productivity Booster You're Not Getting Enough Of (Ep. 6)

Do you ever feel like every minute of your day is packed with meetings and things to do? You might try to shut down to spend time with your family or partner at night, but find yourself picking your laptop back up in the evening hours to try to “catch up”? 

This evening catch up time starts as, I’ll just get through a few emails, and before you know it, it’s hours later and you find yourself exhausted and needing to get up in just a few short hours to do it all over again.

But what if reclaiming your nights could supercharge your days? 

In today’s conversation, I’m going to share how rest is the most underrated productivity hack you’re not getting enough of. We’ll talk about how prioritizing sleep can transform your productivity, creativity and leadership. By the end, you’ll have a list of things you can do to maximize your sleep so you can show up well-rested and focused in both work and in life.

Stop pushing through the fatigue that’s actually holding you back from doing your best work and keeping you stuck in a cycle of exhaustion and underperformance, something none of us can afford.

00:00 Introduction to Reclaiming Your Nights

01:15 Why Rest is Your Productivity Supercharger

02:22 The Fallacy of Hustle Culture

05:07 How to Maximize Your Sleep

08:15 Creating Your Sleep Sanctuary

10:16 Practical Tips for Better Sleep

11:58 A Simple Hack for Consistent Bedtime

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5 Ways to Calm the Calendar Chaos:
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Transcript

0:00

Do you ever feel like every minute of your day is packed with meetings and things to do. You might try to shut down and spend time with your family or your partner at night, but you find yourself picking up your laptop again in the evening hours, just to try to catch up. This evening catch-up time starts as just, oh. Maybe through a few emails, maybe with some Netflix in the background and before you know, it it's hours later. You find yourself exhausted and needing to get up and just a few short hours to do it all over again. But what if reclaiming your nights where the key to supercharging your days? In today's conversation, I'm going to share with you how rest is the most underrated productivity hack you're not getting enough of. We'll talk about how prioritizing your sleep can help you show up better at work. And in your life and get things done faster. By the end, you'll have a list of things you can do to maximize your sleep so you can show up well, rested and focused in both work. And life. Stop pushing through that fatigue. That's actually holding you back from doing your best work in keeping you stuck in a cycle of exhaustion and underperformance. Something none of us can afford. it's easy to feel over-scheduled over tired and some days just over it. It's time to ditch the guilt. Still get things done and have time left for ourselves. And the most important people in our lives. How do we do that? You're about to find out. Hey there. My name's Jennifer Shay, and here you'll get the latest bio-hacks mindset shifts and calendar control strategies to help you get to the other side of busy. I'll bring you insights on how to get more done during work hours, so you can shut it off and prioritize what truly matters. In today's conversation, I'm going to help you understand why sacrificing sleep in the name of getting more done. It's actually hurting you more than helping you. And how you can get better quality sleep than you have in years. Because who wants to show up? Feeling exhausted and unfocused, not you. And now you don't have to make sure you stick around to the end, the, where I'm going to share with you. A ridiculously simple trick to make sure you get to bed exactly when you want to. So let's dive in. Our culture has a way of making us feel like the hustle and grind is the only way to get ahead. But this is really a fallacy. And it leaves us feeling stuck because it sells us the lie that if we're continually busy and being productive, we have to be getting more done. That's not the case. And the reason for this is because it doesn't account for this time, energy paradox. You see while our time is fixed. We all get the same 168 hours in a week, our energy flexes. So the work that you do and how you show up at 8:00 AM might be different from 2:00 PM, 6:00 PM or midnight. And you've experienced this. If you've ever say tried to stay up late and get something done and just hit a wall where you can't move forward. The more we push the more exhausted that we get. And if we don't create space to rest, we're just running an empty. The CDC says that the average American adult only gets six hours of sleep every night, but we really need seven to nine. Do you know what operating on six hours of sleep gives you the cognitive abilities of? Someone who is legally intoxicated. But I don't know about you, but I don't want to be making important business decisions, life decisions, career decisions, and that kind of fog. So. What if we could reclaim our nights so we could show up better during the day? First, let me tell you why this hustle fallacy is lying to you. So there was a study done where they took two groups of workers and they told the first. Work 80 hours a week. And they told the second, just pretend like you're working 80 hours a week. The managers of the two groups could not tell the difference between those who actually worked 80 hours and those who just pretended to do so. Even in a 50 hour workweek. We're really only getting about 37 productive hours. So every extra hour we put in is really only worth about 30 minutes if we're lucky of productive time. So there's no noticeable benefit of working beyond 50 hours. So these people that say, if I work 80 and you work 40, I'm going to get there twice as fast. Aren't telling the truth. They're not taking into consideration the energy they need to show up and do the work and be focused during those work hours. Here's the honest truth. When we're sleep deprived, the work takes longer. And the quality. Suffers. So the biggest takeaway for you here is that rest is not your reward for hard work. It's your prerequisite for greatness. If you want to show up well in work and in life, the answer all lies in getting a good night's sleep. So now that we've established why your sleep is so important and why that hustle fallacy isn't serving you. Let's talk about how you can maximize your sleep. Here are some tips, so you can get the most restful sleep you've gotten in years. Let's start with the ten three, two rule. 10 hours before bed. Cut The caffeine. All right. So that means that if you're trying to go to bed at 10, you need to be finished up with that coffee, tea, whatever you're having by noon. This helps your body move out the caffeine from your system. So you can actually fall and stay asleep. Three hours before bed close the kitchen and the liquor cabinet. So many of us will do late night snacking or have a nightcap. And this is really sabotaging our sleep because our body needs to start metabolizing that before we fall asleep. First it's easier to metabolize those things as we are setting up right. And not laying down sleeping. But secondly, if our body hasn't started metabolizing that before we go to sleep, it pushes off all the repair work it needs to do while we're asleep. Because it's digesting that food and liquor. All right. So three hours before bed. close the kitchen close the liquor cabinet. And finally two hours before bed. I cut all the screens and the overhead lighting. Now this is one that I know a lot of people struggle with. We stay up late and watch Netflix. We scroll our phones. Hopefully we are escaping email with this episode, but here's why that sabotages us. The blue light from our devices and some of our led overhead lighting. Hits our retina. And confuses our brain into thinking that it's still daylight, that we need more energy, more cortisol to pump things and keep us moving. But what it suppresses in that is our melatonin and our body needs to produce melatonin to fall asleep and stay asleep. So the more blue light you get closer to bed, the harder it is to produce melatonin, which is the hormone. Your body needs to really encourage a restful night's sleep. So by cutting screens and overhead lights, two hours before bed. You're allowing your body to go through its natural circadian rhythm. Producing melatonin and falling asleep.= Now you might say Jenna, there's no way I can back it up two hours. I have my phone in bed. Let's just make incremental progress. If you are in bed with your phone, can you move the charger across the room or better yet into the bathroom? And put it there 15 minutes before bed. Can you back up 15 minutes every week. So that eventually you get to an hour. And then two hours. Can you turn it to gray scale so that it's not so exciting to scroll through. And you ended up shutting it off anyway. All right. This blue light piece is really helpful, but there's also just the dopamine hit that we get from scrolling, social media or watching Netflix before bed. That isn't helping her body calm down for a restful night's sleep. All right. So in addition to that 10, three, two rule, I also have a few other tips for you. Maximize your sleep environment. So what does this look like? Well, ideally we sleep in a pretty cool room. The body sleeps best and deepest. If our room is kept between 60 and 68 degrees Fahrenheit. So if your room is at 70 to 75, your body isn't able to cool down and really get the deepest rest that it can. So be mindful of the temperature of your room. The next thing you can do is get blackout shades, especially in the summertime when it can be light out until 8 39. It can be really hard to fall asleep, especially if you're planning an early bedtime. So blackout shades allow you to black out any remnants of the sunset so that you can go to bed. When you say you want to. It will also allow you to stay asleep longer because you're not getting those remnants of the sunshine coming in. As you're trying to get those last few moments of sleep, they're also really helpful on nights where we have a full moon and it's bright outside. Again, the light coming from other areas is a signal to our brain that we need to be awake. So the blackout shades really help us keep the room dark, which is better and sustainable for a good night's sleep. Another key part of having a sleep sanctuary is moving your phone out of the bedroom. We mentioned this earlier, but it goes worth repeating that having your phone next to the bed encourages you to be on your phone right before you go to sleep and be on it. First thing, when you wake up. There's also a light that comes when your phone is charging. And so that light emits some brightness in your room when you want completely dark room to sleep. So by putting your phone in another room in the bathroom, outside of the bedroom, you're not only getting rid of the light that might come from the phone. You're banning that idea of I can be on my phone right before bed, or first thing when I wake up. And you're also eliminating any distraction from settling into a good night's sleep. Another question you can ask yourself to prepare for your best sleep is how can I best prepare my body and my mind for bed. Alright, this is typically not watching some thriller on Netflix right before you go to sleep. That gets your heart rate going. What we want to do is slow down our body, slow down our mind. So some ideas of how you might do that. Take a warm bath. Do a meditation. Have a conversation with your partner or a family member rather than scrolling social media on your phone. Maybe some gentle yoga. Anything that slows down your mind from the day. And slows down your heart rate in your body will really help you settle in so that when you lay your head on the pillow, you're more likely to fall asleep and stay asleep. In a moment I'm going to share with you a silly, simple hack you can use to guarantee you get to bed on time. But first, if you're ready to put away the work and prioritize sleep. Awesome. But I know some of us need a little bit more help letting go of how we can cut the work down at night. Or on weekends and still keep up with all the things and not get overwhelmed or feel buried. So I've put together something really valuable for you. It's called five strategies to calm the calendar chaos. In it, I'll share with you a template on how you can eliminate automate or delegate some of those things on your list that are hogging all of your time. So you can create more space to do the meaningful work. And then you feel like you can shut it off and prioritize life outside of work and sleep. You can sign up for that@theothersideofbusy.com slash chaos, or just click the link in the show notes. All right. Here's a ridiculously simple hack to help you honor a consistent bedtime without sabotaging yourself with a Netflix marathon or getting caught in email. Set. a reverse. Alarm. Like you set an alarm for when you wake up, you can set an alarm for when you should start to get ready for bed. Think about how long you need to wrap things up and get your mind and body ready for sleep. Is that 10 minutes? Is it 30 minutes? Then take your bedtime and subtract that prep time. And set a bedtime routine alarm on your phone. For example, I like to be up at 5:00 AM, ideally. So I'm asleep by nine. I like 30 minutes to get ready for bed. I take about 20 of these to read. Before turning off my lamp and closing my eyes. All right. So my bedtime routine alarm goes off at eight 30. This practice might feel a little weird at first, but I promise you the more that you honor this, the more you're going to be able to show up each day with renewed focus and clarity. I hope you found something today. That's extremely valuable and you move forward, prioritizing your rest so you can show up as your best self in work and in life. Please, let me know what's been helpful. You can shoot me a DM on Instagram. I'm at Jenna dot Pasha. Or you can just click the link in the show notes. All right, until next time may the work you do create the meaning and the life that you deserve. I'm rooting for you.