Hi everyone,

I hope you enjoyed last week's newsletter - thank you for the replies. They're always encouraging.

Not as much content this week, but hopefully you'll take away something valuable as we cover Sleep Deprivation, Time Tracking, and Burning Desire.

Sleep Deprivation

I haven't been getting great sleep lately - a busy schedule and what seems to be a series of unfortunate sleep blocking events has created a long stretch of nights where I've fallen short of that 8-hour benchmark.

I knew it couldn't be good for me, but I didn't realise just how bad it was until I read this study on Sleep Deprivation. It's worth reading but the most interesting finding to me was people who only averaged 4-6 hours sleep per night suffered just as much impairment as a group that had been deprived of sleep completely for 88 hours straight.

It was definitely a wake-up call for me (pun intended) and I'll be working on improving that over the next few weeks. I'll share what I find works best.

Time Tracking

My self-experiment from this week has been to track where I spend my time (for those curious, I'm using the free IOS app, Toggl Track. I think it's supposed to be for freelancers, but it works perfect for this purpose).

I've been doing it since Monday and plan to keep it going for at least 10 days or so. It's been very interesting to see where a lot of my time goes, what tasks take longer, and the impact of certain things on my productivity.

I recommend everyone gives it a go at least for a few days. I haven't completed my 10 days yet, but I have gained some insights. Hopefully if you suffer from any of these, you'll be able to recognise them in your own patterns.

1. There's a lot of DEAD TIME in Task Switching. If you're not prepared for your next task or don't have anything planned, you'll waste a lot of time.
2. A lack of Morning Routine leads to Brain Fog and Sluggishness. Brain Fog and Sluggishness leads to an unproductive morning and plenty of wasted time.
3. The things I enjoy / value most (reading, projects, writing, etc) did not make up remotely as much time as they should. A reminder to schedule in what's important and meaningful.

The findings have not all been negative. I've been spending about 30 minutes a day on Copywork, get a decent amount of social time through the week (thanks to Uni), and have plenty of time for audio books while driving / physical books while on the train.

Burning Desire.

The book Think and Grow Rich is one of the best-selling in History. Despite being published over eighty years ago, it constantly finds its way onto most must read non-fiction lists... and for good reason.

The book is the culmination of 20 years worth of study of around 500 of the most successful individuals alive at the time. It's lessons are still used by people today (Daymond John, a shark on Shark Tank and founder of FUBU, claims to have read the book over twenty times.) and its one that I plan to use the Total Absorption strategy on eventually.

The book details 13-steps to riches (or success of any kind) - and the first step is quite simple: Have a Burning Desire.

A Burning Desire is one that you're committed to with the intensity of someone who has burned their ships. You have no other option and you'll accept no other result - you must succeed, and you'll persist until you do.

Read any number of Biographies of successful people and you'll find that they all share this trait. They had their Burning Desire.

If you can cultivate a Burning Desire - one that is worthy and meaningful to you - you'll achieve a unique type of freedom that only comes through Discipline. You won't have to worry about Failure because it won't exist - you may have setbacks, but when quitting isn't an option, you'll succeed. Maybe not immediately, but inevitably.

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That's all for this week.

I hope you've found this useful and I've encouraged you to do three things: Take your sleep more seriously, Track your time, and find a Burning Desire.

As always let me know what you thought and thank you for reading!

P.S. A special shoutout to James who always lets me know his thoughts and gives me valuable feedback on every issue (and encourages me to keep writing when I stop). You're very much appreciated!