Practice Management

If you work at home you might get enough sleep by avoiding the commute in the morning, which would let you avoid taking a nap.  But, it is nice to know that your favorite bed and pillow is just a carpet commute away.

HuffPo reports that American workers are desperately short on sleep.  Some companies are trying to help.  The picture attached to this post is of Rieko Saitoh, a publicist for Matsushita Electric Works, demonstrating the company's "Sleep Room," in Tokyo 2004.  For the home office worker this could just as well be your bedroom.

Here is the insomniac truth of the matter.  A recent survey of 1,000 people found participants average just six hours and 40 minutes of sleep a night on weeknights, even though they estimated they'd need roughly another 40 minutes of sleep to be at their best.  About a third of those surveyed said they had fallen asleep or become very sleepy at work in the past month.

Also, recently the chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission acknowledged it should have done more to investigate a tip that security guards routinely took naps while on the job at a Pennsylvania nuclear plant.

The biggest culprit of sleep deprivation is work.  Most report that is work that is keeping them up at night, according to the survey, which found workdays are getting longer and time spent working from home averages close to four-and-a-half hours each week.

My solution is that if you can work at home at night, you can work from home most days, and the long commute that most of us face can more than make up for that four and a half hours each week that you have to work after hours at home now.

It seems people are also trying to squeeze in more time for themselves and their families, even if it means less sleep. The average wake up is at 5:35 a.m. and it's followed by about two hours and 15 minutes at home before heading out to work, according to the survey. Average bedtime is 10:53.

By the long and the short of the matter is that if you need to spend more time with your family, then ending the commute helps, and having them around when you work helps, and the flexibility of working at home helps.  But, what also helps is that you can go dose off for an hour or so during the day, maybe during lunch, when the kids and family are not around.  You can give your batteries a quick recharge.  Nobody has to know, and your work performance improves.  And, it is not a bid deal because, as I said, your little bed and pillow are only a carpet commute way.