Sleep Is The Ingredient To Great Writing.

Consistent writing requires consistent quality sleep.

Ever since I started to be more consistent in my content contribution for social media, blogs, websites, and whitepapers of all sorts, I realised that I need more sleep than usual. This is especially so when there are days where I have multiple deadlines, meaning multiple different types of writings to be submission for publication and or client acceptance.

While 6 hours used to be sufficient for a great day ahead, now a 20-minute nap in the afternoon is required for a recharge.

In a way that every profession has its unique challenges, writing for the entire day (at times, because I cannot be writing the entire day. I got other jobs to attend to!) is mentally and emotionally draining. This is a profession where extraction of thoughts from our minds and putting it into words requires a lot more energy expense than we think it requires.

I say that because I frequently overestimate myself.

And that is born out of “Realistic Naivety”.

By “Naivety” means I wake up feeling positive and that every task completion on my To-Do List is possible today, and by “Realistic” means I know that it can be done when I measure it purely on time commitment.

For instance, it might take just 20 minutes of uninterrupted time to finish this story.

Using a linear narrative that we are all used to, I should be able to produce 3 stories when the alarm goes off after an hour.

Really?

Isn’t there something wrong in this extrapolation?

At least I think so.

For one, I rushed to the bathroom to pee immediately after the previous sentence as biological demands call for it.

Secondly, the ability to focus and produce takes a lot of effort. These are efforts that are unique to the writing.

Inspiration for writing doesn’t come natural to everyone, definitely not to me. I am not the kind where everyone I meet and every conversation that I hear could turn into a story. Sure, at times. Just not all the time. I will take time to curate and think about a topic and how to develop the story. Scribbling works for me in terms of expanding the development and I make much more progress putting pen to paper compared to placing finger to keyboard.

That would mean I have to type it out subsequently.

Where the ideation could be a protracted process or invites additional depth, pruning would be required for palatable consumption via reading.

Then there are the headlines.

True, there are many tools to today that analyses the effectiveness of the draft headlines. I would like to remind you that it plays a supplementary role, not a creation role. As content writers, we still need to produce the draft headline and then type it in for analysis.

Most analyser tools are there for analysis purposes, not for time savings.

There are days where I actually spent more time getting to the headline that is eye catching (as determined by the tool and myself) compared to the actually writing of the story.

By now, I will be pretty drained.

Of course, it will not be at the point where I couldn’t function as a human and that I required a bed-hop immediately. It would be at the point where writing a 3-sentence introduction would take 20 minutes.

I term this as sub-optimal awakening experience.

So, as with my recent experience, I learnt to extract myself from the keyboard and head to the sofa for a 20-minute eye shut. In a way that life is beautiful, more rest doesn’t always mean more time wasted if it helps with the effectiveness of our work. I typically wake up feeling more alert to the ideation process, scribbled before I nap, and could cast a sharper overview on how water-tight those ideas develop from the topic at hand.

There are times where I would also rebuke the seemingly perfect headline just to re-write one that is to my satisfaction.

This process will continue in an iterative fashion.

Where there are specific days that requires multiple writings to be completed, I will watch the quantity of my output. I know I become incoherent in presentation of thought processes beyond writing 3 stories for any single day. Henceforth if I start on the 4th, I will only write to the point of preparation for the next day and not start furious typing only to perform serious editing later.

That would not be a good utility of my time.

I also note one thing.

That when I am mentally exhausted from writing today, I will make it a note to head to bed earlier in the evening.

The exhausted mind needs repair and a rebound is only possible when we allow it to rejuvenate.

We have to ask ourselves these questions: -

• Are we baking in enough thinking breaks between our writing time?
• Are we sleeping enough to amass that mentally energy currency to scribe the next epic story for curation?

If not and we are already feeling mentally fogged by mid-day — This is my recommendation.

Go take a light sleep.

It will do you wonders.

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About the Author:

As a Consultant by training, I believe in making the complex simple.

Because simplicity adds value.

Simplicity helps us gain clarity, and clarity helps us to grow.

And if we are not growing, then what’s the point of anything else?

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