Flexible Hours and Productivity

Here's something interesting that sleep taught me.

On Sleep and Productivity

My sleeping schedule has gotten quite strange recently. What is means is that I've been going to bed say at 3~4 am regularly and getting up at about 8 or 10 ish depending on the day (equates to about 4~6 hours) of sleep a day.

I seem to be operating allright through the mornings and I get rather tired by the afternoon (ie. sufficiently tired that I lose focus) where I require a nap for about 1~1.5 hours before my mind is refreshed and once more at at about 7 pm ish. There are some nice rows of padded seats in the building in some of the lounge areas which are ideal for naps.

After realizing how nice it is to take a nap while working to refresh myself and bring back my effectiveness, I've come to realize how impossible doing this would be for certain companies where you earn a hourly wage, a method that I think should be re-evaluated for certain job sectors.

In what I do... well reserach and homework at the moment. I have found that working while tired is more detrimental compared to not working at all. Suppose you spend an entire day preparing a sample and during one of your process steps you mangle the sample up by washing it in the wrong chemical or something. Immediately, the sample is toast and I would have to start over again. This has happened to me a few times.

This doesn't necessarily just applies to experimentation, but also working. There have been times where I've been working on homework sets while fatigued. I can spend hours trying to wrap my head around it but get absolutely no where. I've found that with a much more alert mind that I can hammer these problems much more efficently, say in 2 hours instead of 4 for example.

Time and Productivity

Unfortunately, working in an hourly wage system does not appreciate the concept of productivity nor does it promote it... short of discrete promotions that occur or salary raises which occur at irregular intervals. Why be efficient when you can get time and a half working overtime?

What would be an interesting paradigm shift in the working world is a shift from hourly to productivity compensation. Productivity based consumption exists in the realm of people working for their own company or what they earn is directly related to how much they can sell or produce. I would have to say that it is ironic that salary based pay still exists in the capitalistic market economy-- not all services and products are made equal, nor is the productivity of a person.

Where do productive people go?

Productive people, move into positions such as project leaders or as of recently, into start up companies where they can work on their own. Both kinds of positions are inherently similar in the sense that produtive people end up into directive positions where work occurs on their own terms.

For people in start up companies, or those working for themselves, productivity is far more important than working long hours... and in reality, very productive people tend to be very productive and work long hours, *especially* when working for themselves, the reason being is that they are doing their best to leverage their productivity to make the most gains out of it. I would bet that you would not find highly productive people working on salary in any organization, but instead out on their own and if you want to work with them, you too should also be in the same environment.