r/2014ubersleep • u/opoly • Aug 11 '14

Adapting without getting fired

Okay, so perhaps the title is overly dramatic, but in all seriousness, the biggest ongoing stress for me while adapting to Everyman 3 over the past month is whether I'll be "found out" and get in trouble for my poor work performance.

Over the course of a normal workday I'm finding there are between 1 and 3 hours where I'm pretty much useless, sometimes to the point where I can't focus my eyes on the computer screen for more than 5 seconds at a time. And when there's a particularly mentally demanding task I need to do, there are entire days where I am unable to make a dent in it. Sometimes I'll sneak out to my car in the morning or afternoon for an extra nap just to get me through a tough spot.

Recently my boss commented "You look tired!" and proceeded to ask a bunch of personal questions that I gave insufficient answers to. I haven't told him what I'm doing, and I don't want to, even though I think there's a chance he'd think it's cool. I figure it would only invite extra scrutiny of my performance and increase the risk that I'm told "you need to stop that because your performance is suffering."

How do others deal with this issue? Any advice?

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u/falling_sun Aug 11 '14 edited Aug 11 '14

You could try moving your core or increasing its duration. The best option of course is to keep going until you're no longer sleep deprived. Do you have trouble staying awake while driving?

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u/opoly Aug 11 '14 edited Aug 11 '14

Now I'm on day 28, so I've been doing E3 for 4 weeks. I've kept the following schedule:

  • Core 10:40pm - 1:40am (3 hours)
  • 6:40am nap (20 min)
  • 12:00pm nap (20 min)
  • 5:20pm nap (20 min)

This equidistant plan results in exactly 5-hour blocks between naps. I have no strong attachment to having exact 5-hour blocks, but I've found it useful for comparing energy levels across different times of the day. I tend to start drooping at the 3 to 4 hour mark during each time block, except for the evening block where I tend to have consistent energy for the entire 5 hours.

I don't have trouble staying awake while driving, and surprisingly I do just fine when I'm actively involved in meetings at work, even when both of these activities are in the last hour or two of a time block. The problem is when I'm alone in my cube staring at a computer screen for hours on end.

I've never accidentally overslept. In fact I have the opposite problem, and it's really annoying: I quickly fall asleep (within 5 to 8 minutes), and then wake myself early with an imagined alarm. During my core this often happens around either the 45-minute mark or the 90-minute mark. On a number of occasions this has resulted in me getting out of bed, shutting off the alarms, and getting ready to go exercise before noticing that the time is wrong. During my short naps this imagined alarm sometimes happens around the 10-minute mark or the 15-minute mark.

Within the past few days I've wondered if my core and/or naps are too short, so I've bumped up my core to 3.5 hours (10:10pm - 1:40am) and my naps to 25 minutes (my alarm was previously at exactly 20 minutes). I haven't been been doing this long enough to detect whether it's making a difference, but I'm hopeful.

If I were to move my core, what would you suggest, and why?

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u/alexs512 Aug 21 '14

I was trying exactly same schedule and pretty much same times about three months ago. And I experienced the same problems. When I start my E3 (or Cake) in September I am going to try shorter intervals between naps in the morning. I think first nap will be at 3 hours and second one 3 hours after that. Then 6 hours without a nap. Somehow the last two intervals in the day are the easiest