For a great many people their sleep schedule is not something they control. You have to work when your boss needs you to work. The specific hours you sleep on a given day will change randomly (ie I had to be in at 0500 rather than my normal 0630 today).
>> such that you’re getting your work done faster
So? Lots of people (most people?) work in jobs where speed is largely irrelevant. Working faster just means doing or being assigned more work, not going home sooner or getting any more free time for sleep.
Running on 4-7 hours of sleep (with intermittent 10 hour catch up days) has let me build and launch a lot of stuff.
- A vtubing engine for virtual production (film, improv, streaming)
- https://storyteller.io , tools for streamers (in-stream TTS, deepfaked gifs, a voxel camera), which should be done this weekend
I don't think I could prepare for YC or any other sort of funding any other way, short of quitting my other responsibilities. There's not enough time in the day, so you have to give up something.
I'll sleep more when I'm funded or when I'm dead, basically.
> This sums up the issue. Most people could get decent sleep if they wanted to or even made a basic effort
Agreed.
> but their current poor-sleep compromise isn’t bad enough to make them want to give anything up. Or they don’t understand what they’re losing because it has been so long since they tried a reasonable sleep schedule.
I think that just like with Diet or Exercise with sleep the feedback loops are longer/delayed and that stops people from engaging in overwhelmingly healthy behavior - because the habit is harder to form.
This sums up the issue. Most people could get decent sleep if they wanted to or even made a basic effort, but their current poor-sleep compromise isn’t bad enough to make them want to give anything up. Or they don’t understand what they’re losing because it has been so long since they tried a reasonable sleep schedule.
> That implies my personal projects make enough money to have a family on. Not true now so the grind continues.
Consider giving up the side projects for a month or two. Side projects are one of the topics where people think they’re going to miss it more than they actually do. A month or two of total disconnectedness won’t sink your side projects, but it’s long enough to test the waters of a healthier sleep schedule.
You may find that after getting your sleep under control, your daily efficiency and energy levels improve such that you’re getting your work done faster, spending more quality time with your spouse, and ultimately freeing up a nice slot of usable free time in the day that could spend on side projects without wrecking your sleep schedule.