A Rough Day March 5, 2006
Posted by alwaqt in Sleep.1 comment so far
Brief Summary: I slept like 9-10 hours. I could try to explain and justify it like I did last post but really I want to instill in myself that there is no excuse for this. If I continue at this rate I would spend half of my life sleeping.. pretty scary if you think about it. Please stay tuned!
Unscheduling My Life March 4, 2006
Posted by alwaqt in GTD, Productivity.2 comments
I would estimate that I have already spent approximately 10-15 hours investigating GTD systems. In general I have found that every single thing I read is beneficial, which is actually less helpful in the information overload sense. One of the most useful resources I have found is The Now Habit by Neil Fiore. So far I have done the following with The Now Habit:
- Downloaded a sample and a blank Now Habit schedule, or “unschedule,” from the author’s website. Unschedules are supposed to represent a realistic picture of the time available and provide a way to keep track of time and accomplishments. However his sample schedule is not really designed to be printed and used so I recreated it as a Word document.
- Subscribed to TheNowHabit Yahoo! Group. I don’t really like to receive all those emails, not even the daily digest, so I didn’t choose that method of subscription. So you’re probably wondering why did I even join the group to begin with? Well the reason is because they have in their files section an entire chapter-by-chapter summary of The Now Habit book.
I am still reading through the chapter summaries but so far what I have read is a very good explanation of why people procrasinate. Now I will proceed to work on my own unschedule!
Early Rising with an Early Nap March 4, 2006
Posted by alwaqt in GTD, Productivity, Sleep.add a comment
I have good news and I have bad news. The good news is today I stayed awake after I prayed Fajr. I was feeling great and like I had already attained a big victory. I was up listening to a beautiful recitation of the Qur’an by a recitor from Sudan. I reviewed my To-Do List for the day and later on in the week. I responded to a few emails for work. I was on a roll… and then it happened (here comes the bad news).
I had a terrible idea to try to take an early nap. To make a short story long, I laid down around 4 hours after I woke up in the morning. I initially did this because my eyes were feeling tired but actually I think I was just still waking up and I think it would’ve been better to do some exercise to wake me up, but I had a brilliant idea that if I take a 20-30 minute nap then that will wake me up!
So I set my cell phone alarm to go off in 30 minutes and put my head on the pillow, giving me at least 10 minutes to fall asleep. In most cases once my head hits the pillow I fall asleep within 5-10 minutes. However this morning I experienced possibly the quickest 30 minutes in my life go by as I laid down wrestling with myself to go to sleep. Right when I drifted off the alarm goes off on the phone and I was so surprised that I said outloud, “No way it’s already been 30 minutes!”
But I was determined. I set the phone alarm again for 40 minutes, giving myself 20 minutes to fall asleep this round. I must have laid there awake another 20 minutes though before I actually fell asleep, which means that my plan to set the alarm ahead 20 minutes for me to fall asleep worked but honestly by this time I really wanted to sleep more than 20 minutes. To sum it all up, when the alarm went off I turned it off immediately and fell back asleep for about 3 hours, which some people may not even consider to be a “nap” anymore. That brings my total amount of sleep today to 7 hours, one more hour than yesterday.
As I said before I rarely experience this feeling of having difficulty falling asleep. So what was the cause? If I had to pinpoint it to anything, I would say that perhaps it is due to the cup of green tea I drank after I woke up around 6 am. So now I’m thinking that maybe caffeine does have an affect on my sleep! The other cause I am thinking could be that I put too much concentration on trying to take a nap. Usually when I take my afternoon nap I don’t even have to think about it, rather it just happens. But this time I consciously tried to take a nap and I ended up just laying there like it was some minor form of torture.
When someone fails at something, they can still attain success within that failure if they learn from their mistakes and they are prevented from falling into the same hole twice. So the two lessons I have extracted from my morning mishap is:
- If I feel tired after waking up in the morning then I should exercise instead of trying to take a nap. This should give me enough strength and energy to last until the afternoon when I can take my normal nap.
- Be more conscious of when I drink anything with caffeine in it and try to look ahead to what I plan to do within the next few hours. If I intend to sleep in the next few hours then it is best to just drink decaffeinated tea, water and/or juice to quinch my thrist.
Early Rising for a Polyphasic Day March 3, 2006
Posted by alwaqt in Sleep.2 comments
I have been reading How to Become an Early Riser (Part 1 and Part 2) on Steve Pavlina’s blog and I have benefited from it greatly, as is the case with all of his motivation material.
I consider myself to be a morning person and someone who can be an early riser, but I’m just not doing so on a consistant basis. Every single day I wake up at 5 am in the morning to pray Fajr. The days where I do stay awake after praying Fajr, and begin to do absolutely any type of activity I truly feel great the entire day. On those precious days I almost always take a siesta (in Arabic it is called al-qayloolah), as is encouraged in Islam. In fact, I have a theory that the current tradition of siesta came to Spain from the influence of Muslims living and ruling the land at that time known as al-Andalus for more that 900 years. What is interesting is that knowledge and science was flourishing in al-Andalus at a time when Europe was in the “Dark Ages”.. I’m thinking maybe the naps played a role!
Anyways, once I take this nap I never feel tired until later on in the night. I predict that on this schedule of taking a 20-30 minute nap in the middle of the day I could probably sleep only 4-5 hours max at night and still be very productive. So.. that’s about 4:20-5:30 hours of sleeping max. Close to a polyphasic 2-3 hours of sleep a day? Well, if I do this schedule correctly then I would have 2 more hours in the day. To be this is an achievement and at least a step closer to implementing Polyphasic sleeping if I choose to one day. This schedule is only 1-2 hours less sleep than Polyphasic, so can 1-2 hours really matter in my productivity level? Hmm… so right now I’m thinking that I should focus on scheduling my life for early rising, which eventually may lead to polyphasic sleeping once I manage my time better and I’m prepared to take it to the next level.
Two Polyphasic Inspirations March 3, 2006
Posted by alwaqt in Inspiration, Sleep.add a comment
‘Umar ibn al-Khattaab (d. 644 CE – radiyallahu ‘anhu) (Link 1)
I first read about Polyphasic sleeping from an Islamic message board that was talking about how ‘Umar ibn al-Khattaab used to sleep this way, and this is when he was the ruler of the entire Muslim world. He is paraphrased as saying, “If I sleep in the morning, I’ll lose the entire Muslim world (given the fact that he was busy being the leader of a nation which was in the process of conquering half the world), and if I sleep at night I’ll lose myself (as in that sleeping at night will cause him to not worship Allah as much as needed).”
Imaam an-Nawawi (d. 1278 CE – rahimahullah) (Link 1, Link 2)
Another example of a dynamic and beneficial person in Islamic history is Imaam an-Nawawi. His pursuit of knowledge dominated his entire life. He would put all of his time into studying, learning, and teaching. It is even stated that he would not sleep except when sleep would overtake him. He would rest on his book and sleep for a little, then he would act startled upon awakening and continues studying. He once said about himself, “I spent two years without lying on the ground [to sleep] on my side.” That is, he would always study and write until sleep overtook while in a sitting position. Al-Qutb al-Yauneeni said about him, “He would not waste any moment of the day or night but he would spend it busy with attaining knowledge. Even when he walking and in the streets he will be busy going over what he had remembered and reviewing his notes. He continued gaining knowledge in that way for a period of six years.”
It seems – and only Allah knows the reality – that Allah truly blessed his time. Perhaps this was due to a sincere intention to please Allah. As mentioned above, he would attend up to twelve classes a day. Commenting on that fact, al-Diqr wrote,
He used to have twelve study sessions a day with his teachers. These included explanations, verifications, commentaries, explaining the different aspects and expressions as well as exacting the correct wordings. This would take, at a least approximation, twelve hours a day. Then he would need to review what he had learned and memorise what need to be memorised. The very least approximation is that this would also take twelve hours a day. This is twenty-four hours in a day! When would he sleep? When would he eat? When would he perform the acts of worship? When would he perform the voluntary late night prayers? It is well-known that he performed those types of acts of obedience and worship. When would all of that take place? He was in need of studying and reviewing for all the twenty fours in a day and night. This shows how Allah blessed and graced this man. Allah blessed him in his time. He gave him the ability to complete in one day what it takes everyone else two years to accomplish. This is the only way we can explain this tremendous undertaking that made him one of the greatest scholars of his time in about ten years. In fact, it made him the leader (Imaam) of his time. This is also the only way we can explain all of his wonderful, detailed and radiant writings in a span of time that lasted no more than fifteen years. He spent all of his lifetime and living hours in learning, teaching and writing.
And Imaam an-Nawawi died at 45 years old!
Reflections on My Monophasic Life March 3, 2006
Posted by alwaqt in Sleep.add a comment
Monophasic vs. Polyphasic aside, I am contemplating on how I even spend my time with my current Monophasic lifestyle. I am faced with the second issue that I mentioned in the this post.
- Based on my current Monophasic lifestyle, after my sleep and work I have a total of 9 hours to spend on whatever tasks and goals I want to accomplish. So why am I not having much success in accomplishing these tasks and goals? I think it is due to having a poor system for accomplishing these goals and managing how I spend these 9 hours, if having any system at all!
- If I attain 4 more hours daily (1,440 more hours annually) from a Polyphasic lifestyle, will I know how to spend those 12 hours of extra “free” time? My problem isn’t that I don’t know what to do within that time.. I have plenty of goals that I want to accomplish in my life. Rather my problem is that I am not making correct use of the “free” time I already am in possession of so won’t a Polyphasic lifestyle give me more of a feeling of being lost with my time? Realistically how will this new method of sleeping really benefit me if I don’t know how to manage and correctly spend the time I already have? I surely don’t want to end up being a huge couch potato (even though I don’t even watch any TV so I’m not sure if that is the correct term for myself), and I don’t want to start Polyphasic sleeping and quit it in the middle only due to the fact that I didn’t solve this problem.
So now I am being thinking that perhaps I should plan out how I will use my current time, and my extra time if I go Polyphasic, before I adopt this new method of sleeping. Or am I just being chicken?
Another Day In My Monophasic Life March 3, 2006
Posted by alwaqt in Sleep.add a comment
نِعْمَتَانِ مَغْبُونٌ فِيهِمَا كَثِيرٌ مِنْ النَّاسِ الصِّحَّةُ وَالْفَرَاغُ
“There are two blessings which many people do not make the most of and thus lose out on benefitting from: good health and free time.” – Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him)
Well, I didn’t begin my Polyphasic transition experiment today. That’s okay though, I didn’t really make an intention to begin yet anyways. I want to read just a little bit more about the experiences of other people who have been successful as well as those who failed so I can make notes as to what to avoid. No need to fail myself when I can learn from other people’s mistakes, right?
Anyways, so I have slept 6 hours today. Yes I am well rested right now and I do feel alert, but who wouldn’t be after all of that sleep? I am sure I will feel drowsy around late afternoon.
If you’re a Polyphasic mutant, I know you’re probably thinking, “Why don’t you just move and live in your bed if you’re going to spend all that time in there??” Cut me some slack I’m in the learning period still! As my Monophasic and Polyhpasic sides are wrestling with eachother within, I have to try to find some time to read up some more so I can begin my Polyphasic experiment. Although had I been sleeping Polyphasic I would have plenty of time (4 more hours a day, 28 more hours a week, 120 more hours a month, 1,440 more hours a year, 28,800 more hours in 20 years.. this is soooo attractive)!
USA Today on Polyphasic Sleep March 2, 2006
Posted by alwaqt in Sleep.add a comment
The other day I found on Steve Pavlina’s website that USA Today has published an article about polyphasic sleep. I think it is interesting to see polyphasic sleep being discussed in the mainstream news. I have read through this article very briefly and I have made the following observations:
- The article features a poll that states that most people say that they don’t get enough sleep. I think it is important to keep in mind that there is a difference between what people say and what is the reality of the situation. I would suggest that feelings of tiredness and exhaustion are not necessarily caused by a lack of sleep even though that is the easiest thing to blame. Instead these feelings may really be a reflection of other problems such as daily stress which comes from the workplace and family life.
- The article focuses on polyphasic sleep as a solution to manage all of the busy aspects of our life, but from my understanding and research so far this is not the reason why polyphasic sleepers have chosen this method of sleeping. They are choosing this method of sleep as a means for them to accomplish more in their day and on a larger scale in their entire life, but the means isn’t the method itself. These sleepers with this in mind already have their own system to get things done in their life. So in other words, polyphasic sleep is not a direct solution to accomplishing any task in your life and if you don’t have a system for accomplishing your tasks and goals (such as GTD) then you could just end up as someone with a lot of time on their hands and no proper way to manage how it is spent. If you are this type of person then either you will probably abandon polyphasic sleep or just become a huge couch potato.
- The article touches on the issue of the consumption of caffeine, and coffee in particular, and its harmful effects on our sleep. Personally I enjoy drinking coffee. In fact, right now as I type this I am drinking a cup of green tea and aftewards if I wanted to I think I could go straight to sleep without any problems. I think I am from the few who are not really affected by caffeine in this sense, and I am wondering if that is a good or bad thing? I look forward to seeing how my consumption of tea and coffee will affect my experience with polyphasic sleep!
- Did you know that there is a National Sleep Foundation? Me neither, and the whole people floating on clouds thing on their website is pretty weird by the way.
