Working to grow your business or your career is challenging! To move things faster we often cut down on the time we spend with our loved ones resulting in a poor work-life balance. Down the road, this can potentially lead to serious personal problems like divorce, broken relationships to kids and many more.

But mostly it starts somewhere else.

Cutting down sleep

To create value for our customers, clients or companies we need to work. We need to be productive. The more time we invest, the more productivity we can generate is often the simple logic.

But this falls short.

You might ask yourself why…and the straight forward answer to this question is: because of the side effects of sleep deprivation!

A look at the side effects

As soon as we cut down on sleep our bodies get a hit. Literally right away. I mean you can compare the abilities of somebody that is sleep deprived from one bad night of sleep with somebody that has been drinking alcohol.

One difference – sleep-deprived people do not tend to recognize how much their productivity really drops.

So here is a shortlist of additional side effects:

• #1 feeling moody
• #2 problems to focus
• #3 lack of creativity
• #4 decreased function of immune system
• #5 bad memory
• #6 increased risk of serious diseases

and all of the above lead to a dramatic drop of productivity and performance in every aspect of life.

So what do we want to do instead?

Creating work-life-sleep balance

Let’s have a look at how to create lasting well-being and productivity now. Let’s start with sleep. Sleep is the foundation of everything we do.

• health
• work
• life

It doesn’t matter – we need to sleep! So the first thing to protect is getting 7-9 hours of sleep every single day. And we want to ensure that we become those hours as part of a regular schedule all 7 days in a week.

Then let’s have a look at our life. How are we spending our time here? Let’s focus on spending quality time with our families, friends and yes – with ourselves. Only if we get these things right, we are able to work truly productively.

So, now that we have fewer net hours to work left – how can we become more productive? Simple! We will no work:

• with more focus,
• on the right things,
• make less mistakes,
• come up with valuable ideas,
• decide better and
• cooperate more harmonious with others (the foundation for nearly all value ever created through mankind)

When you feel chased – you run (no time to check the direction) and can easily find yourself anywhere feeling exhausted (sounds familiar?). When you feel relaxed you define a goal and reach it with a steady, confident pace.

And this is what I wish for all of you:

Protect your work-life-sleep balance and live a happy and fulfilled life.

Take care & sleep well

Michael Hildebrandt

P.S.: If you are an overworked entrepreneur that wants to 3 x your productivity in 90 days or less without stress or pressure get in touch with me. I’ve been working on something truly unique!