Healthy is not good.

I have 10 days with a demanding and unconventional work schedule.

Given that all the options available to me seemed equally promising, I decided to do them all.

This requires me to sync up with people in both Paris/London and California, so my days and nights are a continous cycle of work.

I don’t think this is healthy in the long-term., but for a time-bound short-term experiment (I also have a way out), this seems okay.

My sleep schedule looks like this: - A core sleep session from 5AM to 8AM CEST, right after California colleagues logged off. - Two to four 15-minute power naps scheduled throughout the day to maintain my energy levels - A longer 90-minute nap between 6PM and 8:30PM, depending on my European workload, to prepare for the night ahead

Willing sleep to come

To make this possible, I rely on a few techniques to ensure I can fall asleep quickly and get quality rest:

Grounding. I quickly relax my body by tensing my toes for ten seconds, breathing, then my legs, and so on up through my abdomen and shoulders.

Mindful breathing. I focus intently on my breath, more than I would if I were meditating. Over-focusing is known to lead to sleep and that works for me too.

Sleep mask. A friend lend me her awesome sleep mask, it’s awesome! I also tried a melatonin pill once; very effective, but it’s not a path I want to continue going down due to much due to its potential to seriously disrupt my natural sleep cycle.

The outcome

I manage to work accros timezone and achieve 11-12 hours of productive work each day. I felt surprisingly good so far, though a wave of fatigue would hit me between 4PM and 6PM CEST.

It’s quite empowering. I think it lowered my average output quality and added more higher variance, so, trade-offs.

There’s 5 days remaining. I won’t continue with this, it can't possibly be healthy but it's been interesting to push myself to the limits.