http:\/\/amzn.to\/2jCJ2e5<\/a>.)<\/p>\nMy #2 personal productivity tip is also deceptively simple: get
\nenough sleep.<\/p>\n
Forget the average; you know how much sleep you need to get
\nenough rest for peak performance the next day.<\/p>\n
For me, it is about 8 hours, give or take a half hour. Nine is
\ntoo much, seven is adequate in a pinch, and with six or fewer I’m
\ndragging the next day.<\/p>\n
Now here’s the secret of this tip: always get the hours of sleep
\nyou need on every night when the next day is a full work day.<\/p>\n
Sounds easy, but most people don’t do it.<\/p>\n
Here’s how I ensure adequate sleep for maximum productivity, and
\nsome of these ideas may work for you too:<\/p>\n
1–I believe in early to bed, early to rise.<\/p>\n
Why?<\/p>\n
When you get up early, by the time 9am rolls around, you’ve
\nalready done a pile of work. So the pressure is off.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, if you delay doing the work until night, you
\nmay get distracted and never get to it at all.<\/p>\n
Because I need about 8 hours, I go to bed around 10pm, and rise
\nand start working at 6am.<\/p>\n
2–Don’t go out weeknights.<\/p>\n
With rare exception, I do not go out weeknights — no meetings, no
\nbowling, no poker game, no activities outside the home of any
\nkind.<\/p>\n
When you go out, it is likely you will not go to bed until late,
\nwhich will adversely affect energy and productivity for the next
\nday.<\/p>\n
3–Don’t eat too late.<\/p>\n
A big meal too close to bedtime can cause you to sleep poorly and
\nnot feel well.<\/p>\n
(Overeating in general makes you lethargic.)<\/p>\n
4–Always make sure you get your full sleep.<\/p>\n
On the rare occasion when circumstance forces me to go to bed
\nlater than my normal time, I also — unless my schedule absolutely
\nmakes it impossible — get up later.<\/p>\n
I hate starting late. But working without enough sleep would cut
\ninto my productivity by reducing my energy and efficiency, so the
\nnet output would be even worse.<\/p>\n
5–Don’t forget to prepare tomorrow’s list of things to do
\ntonight.<\/p>\n
At the end of the day, I prepare the to-do lists I wrote about in
\nmy last essay for the next day — and post them on my bulletin
\nboard before shutting down for the night.<\/p>\n
If you don’t, you risk thinking, worrying, and ruminating about
\nwork and all you have to do.<\/p>\n
I also place the file for the first task I will do tomorrow on a
\nstand next to my desk.<\/p>\n
This way, I can start working the instant I step into the office
\nthe next morning — and I like a quick start.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In my last essay, I gave you my #1 personal productivity tip: making to-do lists. (This article, in case you missed it, is in my new book “Confessions of a Direct Response Copywriter” — http:\/\/amzn.to\/2jCJ2e5.) My #2 personal productivity tip is also deceptively simple: get enough sleep. Forget the average; you know how much sleep […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1848,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1848"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1326"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1326\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1332,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1326\/revisions\/1332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}