Today was outstanding. Sleep was dream-filled and restorative, mental clarity remained high, and my energy level was more consistent than yesterday. In this post I’ll share:

• An in-depth look at my note-taking throughout the day
• Unveil a dramatically improved chart for visualizing the experiment’s progress
• Tweaks that have helped
• Confess to cheating on the experiment’s original ground rules
• Notes from the day
• Tell you which song I’ve listened to 83 times today

First, I want to share a little number crunch that I did earlier: At the time of this blog post, I’ve slept a total of 6.25 hours in the past 78 hours – for an average of 1.92 hours of sleep per 24 hour period. When I consider these numbers and then look at my energy levels, state of mind, and productivity… wow, it’s shocking to me.

One of the things that attracted me to this experiment was that it seemed inconceivable to function on 2 hours a sleep per day. Yet, I’ve read reports of individuals doing it successfully. It seemed too good to be true.  Skeptical but excited, I dove in head first to find out for myself. It may be too early for conclusions, but I’m blown away so far.

Note Taking

I’m at my computer for good part of my day, so I keep two documents open at all times: an excel document and a word document. The excel document is for recording my mental clarity, optimism, and energy level throughout the day. The word document is used for taking small notes throughout the day about everything from diet and strategy to thoughts and dreams.

The excel document ain’t pretty, but I use the data to produce these lovely charts to help visualize the experience. Which brings me to…

A new and improved chart

I realized today that the charts I have been posting (in the day one and day two posts for example) are really really bad. I mean, the concept is cool and they technically work… but they’re confusing and just plain gross to look at.

Well I spent some time making a better chart and I think you’ll agree its much easier to make comparisons between days, see patterns, and notice improvements.

Yesterday’s Chart (boo!)

Today’s Chart (woo!)

A couple things to note about the above chart:

• I’ve changed “want to sleep” to “energy level” (I calculated energy level by subtracting “want to sleep” from 10. Easy enough). This way, for each of the three categories UP represents a positive state and DOWN represents a negative state.
• Notice that today was overall better than the past two days!
• Notice that I still had the difficult “dip” in all three categories around 8am this morning. (remember, yesterday I nearly quit the experiment around that time)

Tweaks that have been helpful

• Until I learn to fall asleep faster (it currently takes me about 20 minutes), I’ve been giving myself 45 minutes for naps. However, this afternoon I cut it down to 40 minutes. I plan to continue cutting it down to 30 minutes this week – and possibly down to 20 minutes next week.
• Drink a ton of water. I find the naps dehydrating for some reason.
• Eating consistently throughout all awake sessions. Yesterday I made the mistake of eating less during the night (out of habit), but it made me feel worse. I am learning to ignore the time of day and act consistently during each cycle. I still feel drastically different between daylight and night (as evident in the charts), but I can tell this is a step in the right direction and I’m seeing improvement.
• Shower twice per day – after the 6am and 2pm rest is working well.

Cheating on the ground rules

I had a feeling the “no candy” rule would be the first out the window! I happened to have a large Hersey’s dark chocolate bar in my apartment so I had a few pieces today – always within 20 minutes of waking up to minimize any negative effect on my next nap. I didn’t notice any difficulty falling asleep or damage to sleep quality – so today at Wal-Mart I bought another dark chocolate bar  I think next week I’ll experiment with having a coke and see what happens…

Notes from the day

Wednesday

• 10:47 pm – Had an amazing nap. I set my alarm for only 40 minutes this time (working back down from 45 to 30 as I am learning to fall asleep faster). I had several dreams and the total rest period seemed to be two hours long or so. Awesome. I finished up a dream a few seconds before the alarm went off (Liverpool FC was touring the US and played a match at Purdue). I woke up feeling fairly alert – although still in a bit of a fog, but much better than other sleep sessions.
• 11:50 pm – Feeling really good right now. Very sharp. I just wrote a new blog post “Why Polyphasic sleep? | A simple and compelling answer” and am very happy with the quality of my writing and how quickly I was able to write it after concept. Feeling very positive and happy and focused right now. Gonna tackle some web dev projects!

Thursday

• 1:49 am – Fatigue has swept in pretty noticeably in just the last half hour. This is good. I want my body to get used to this short cycle, and I’d rather start to feel sleepy right before a nap then either not feel tired at all or feel tired during the entire wake cycle. This is a good sign of adaption. I’m on a roll with the last two sleep sessions involving a ton of REM sleep, dreams, and the sensation of sleeping for much longer than 20-30 minutes. We’ll see if that continues.
• 2:45 am – I don’t think I dreamt grr, and he rest seemed to go by in a flash. I guess I slept, but it doesn’t quite feel like it. Feeling fairly alert though.
• 4:15 am – I spent some time just mindlessly stumbling (stumbleupon), then made myself some chicken noodle soup. Feeling more awake after that. I think my mistake last night involved not drinking enough water and not eating enough. I should really be eating as much during the night cycles as I do during the day cycles. Now I’m thinking business strategy and building some actionable item lists in a mindmap.
• 8:03 am – I didn’t feel very alert after my 6am sleep – but that was expected. I think that’s the toughest one for me to wake up from at this point. However, it was a definite improvement over yesterday at the same time. I’m feeling pretty good right now – although still thirsty and hungry (all I’ve had is two pieces of chocolate and half a banana). I feel MUCH better than I did yesterday at 8am – when I was close to giving up. Glad I got over that hump. I just emailed a prospective client so it was good to get that moving. I took a few days too long to get back with him.
• 10:49 am – nice, long, dream filled nap! It still takes me 10-15 minutes to shake it off though and feel more alert upon awakening.
• 3:12 pm – My mom came to visit and we had lunch together! She even brought me a piece of homemade apple pie! Amazing. She let me ramble on in excitement about my experiment over our lunch together haha. I didn’t feel tired enough to sleep when it came time for my 2pm nap, but of course I slept anyways. It was a pretty good rest… I believe there were a couple dreams but they escape my memory. Now I’m in a bit of a fog trying to recovery. Overall, it’s pretty encouraging how much better today was than yesterday!

Today’s song obsession

Sometimes I get stuck on a certain song, and wow, today is a perfect example. The song is “Into the Fire” by Thirteen Senses. You can listen to it on Grooveshark right here. It’s very chill and hypnotic – great for clicking the ol’ repeat button  The play count is now at 83 95 – all from today.

Reflection

What a great day. I keep thinking how glad I am that I didn’t quit yesterday morning. This progress is exciting and I absolutely love all this extra time. Like I said yesterday in my post Why Polyphasic sleep? | A simple and compelling answer, “It’s as if I’ve slowed time, added hours to the day, or extended my life – pretty awesome however you want to look at it.”

Thanks for taking the time to read this update on the experiment.  More to come tomorrow.  [If you haven't already, you may want to subscribe by rss or by email to receive future updates automatically.  Convenience FTW!]

EXPERIMENT INDEX:

• Polyphasic Sleep Experiment – Day Zero
• Polyphasic Sleep Experiment – Day One
• Polyphasic Sleep Experiment – Day Two
• Why Polyphasic sleep? | A simple and compelling answer
• Polyphasic Sleep Experiment – Day Three
• Polyphasic Sleep Experiment – Day Four
• Polyphasic Sleep Experiment – The Epic Napstake (nap + mistake)
• Polyphasic Sleep Experiment – The Success, Conclusion, and Addiction

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I’m 54 hours into my exciting polyphasic sleep experiment. For the past two and half days I’ve been sleeping for 20 minutes every 4 hours around the clock. As you can imagine, I’m getting a lot of “but… why?” type questions in various forms. On my first blog post that kicked off the experiment I jokingly cited the reason “because it’s weird.” I’m having a lot of fun subjecting myself to this sleep experiment, but the truth is there really is a compelling argument for the “why” question.

Here’s my understanding explained in a fairly basic way that I think captures the why.

As I understand it, people general have two energy reserves: our primary energy reserve and what people know as our “second wind.”  The primary energy reserve doesn’t last very long, 4-5 hours perhaps, while the second wind kicks in later to provide enough energy to stay up for 16+ hours. From what I understand (and it makes sense to me based upon my experience, not because I understand the biology), the primary energy reserve doesn’t last long but is quickly recharged with a relatively small amount of rest.  The “second wind” energy, in contrast, lasts longer but takes much longer to replenish with sleep.

This makes sense based on my experience, and I think you’ll agree.  Imagine that you normally get 8 hours of sleep and for whatever reason you only get 6 or 7 hours in a particular night.  You may notice that you feel fine during the morning but crash in the afternoon. This is because you are starting with a full (or nearly full) primary energy reserve but once that runs out you find that your “second wind” doesn’t kick in as strong as it should. Coffee anyone?

The idea behind polyphasic sleep is to abandon the second wind altogether. It takes too much sleep to recharge that puppy and it’s not worth it. In polyphasic sleep, you don’t spend hours of sleep trying to charge the second wind because you never stay awake long enough to need it (napping every 4 hours, in my case).   By using only the primary energy reserve, you actually require less sleep, because the primary energy reserve can recharge with dramatically less sleep than it takes to charge the second wind. The result:   I’m running on about 2 hours of sleep per 24 hour period.

It’s as if I’ve slowed time, added hours to the day, or extended my life – pretty awesome however you want to look at it.

Catering to the primary energy reserve isn’t a new concept. Many people take mid-afternoon naps, which serve to quickly replenish the primary energy reserve instead of worrying about the stubborn (and unreliable) second wind.

For the last 54 hours since I began this experiment I’ve been repeatedly depleting and recharging my primary energy reserve. So long second wind – you take too long to recharge! If you need to get caught up, see the index below for a list of the posts about this experiment and don’t forget to subscribe by rss or by email to easily receive future updates (about once per day during this experiment).  I suggest subscribing by email because it’s easiest – and unsubscribing is a snap if you find the updates boring.

My goal is to continue the experiment until I am fully adjusted (two week minimum) at which point I will continue indefinitely.

What do you think? Does this sound like pseudo science mumbo jumbo, or am I on to something? (between you and me, my main reason for trying this is more along the lines of “because it’s weird” and “I’m curious – can it work?”)  Let the experiment continue!

EXPERIMENT INDEX:

• Polyphasic Sleep Experiment – Day Zero
• Polyphasic Sleep Experiment – Day One
• Polyphasic Sleep Experiment – Day Two
• Why Polyphasic sleep? | A simple and compelling answer
• Polyphasic Sleep Experiment – Day Three
• Polyphasic Sleep Experiment – Day Four
• Polyphasic Sleep Experiment – The Epic Napstake (nap + mistake)
• Polyphasic Sleep Experiment – The Success, Conclusion, and Addiction

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It has now been 48 hours since I began my polyphasic sleep experiment (day zero, day one) – sleeping for 20 minutes every 4 hours around the clock – and I’ve found the last 24 hours were much tougher than the first 24. In fact, this morning around 8am the thought of quitting the experiment crossed my mind for the first time (see chart below). The desire to go back to sleep was so strong… it really caught me off guard.

I found myself having an inner dialogue, literally trying to convince myself to give up. “This experiment is doomed – just save yourself the pain and crawl back in bed,” I told myself. You’re probably familiar with this inner dialogue if you’ve ever talked yourself into hitting the snooze button or procrastinating on an important phone call (read as, “I’m not losing my mind, I promise”).

It was no small victory for me to silence that demon and press onward. But let me back up give a better snapshot of the past 24 hours from la-la land.

Last night’s blog post was published at 6:04pm, so I literally hit “publish” and headed to bed for my 6pm rest. I’ll pick up there…

Tuesday 11/17/09

• 6:04 pm – Publish yesterday’s blog post and then crash for my 6pm sleep.
• 7:07 pm – My nap left me feeling dazed and disoriented, feeling worse than before. My body isn’t used to jumping in and out of sleep so frequently. I’m grumpy. I catch myself getting annoyed with people on facebook and twitter – most likely because I’m jealous of their deliciously-normal sleep schedule.
• 11:02 pm – I think I was dreaming when my alarm went off, indicating REM sleep. Waking in this stage of sleep helped me pop right out of bed feeling alert. Progress!

Wednesday 11/18/09

• 12:04 am – Feeling really good right now. In fact, it almost feels like a normal night. Am I adapting that quickly? It seems too easy at this point. I’m spending the time reading blogs and watching educational/cool/inspirational videos online. I’m addicted to learning and the internet is my facilitator. Love it.
• 4:21 am – I spent the last couple hours watching videos online (hey, don’t judge me – at least I wasn’t sleeping like some people). If you’re interesting (of course you are), here are my favorites:
  • fighter jet compilation (why am I not a pilot?)
  • cutest story ever
  • how ships are launched
  • bad day cure
  • dad returns from Iraq
  • water jetpack (yarly)
  • Switzerland base jumping (I will do this at some point in my life)
• 5:21 am – I’m looking forward to the 6am rest, but I’m already dreading having to get up after only 30 minutes. I’m craving sleep and lots of it. After my 2am rest I took a shower and had a breakfast type meal, but I’m still too out of it to be productive at all. Cue yawnstare.
• 6:48 am – I’m feeling, by far, the strongest desire to quit the experiment yet. I find myself trying to rationalize why I should give it up and go back to sleep. I’m tired. I hate my bed… sitting there, an arms reach away, taunting me. I want it to fold up and disappear, only coming out when I need it and staying out of sight / out of mind otherwise. My mind is consumed with the desire for sleep.
• 10:00 am – Feeling better now after some more food and sunlight. I took care of a couple hours worth of web dev work. Feels good. Now it’s 10 so time to lay down in that delicious bed again – I just hope that I feel alright when I get up.
• 10:52 am – This is good. A huge breakthrough. That last rest seemed longer, complete with 3 of 4 dreams of normal detail level punctuated by moments of semi-wakefullness – which actually had me wondering if my alarm wasn’t set properly and fearing that I was oversleeping. This is exactly what I want to happen more often – sleep that seems to last longer, contain dreams, and leaves me waking up alert and rested. Despite the progress I still feel quite tired (maybe because I just woke up a few minutes ago). I struggle with typing and spelling… feeling like I’m still 85% asleep. I’ll go for a walk around the block (the sun is out!).
• 12:12 pm – I’m back from my walk. I took my Dad’s camera that I’m borrowing and snapped a couple photos which I posted to heyitsdrew.com (direct link). The sun was bright and the sky was clear and crisp – just what I needed. I also dropped into a pawn shop and pretended to be interested in everything I saw – even picking up and examining a few random pieces of 90s technology.
• 2:57 pm – Just woke up. Really struggling to stay awake. I find myself nodding off while sitting at my computer and, this is a good sign, discovering that my eyes are closed without ever consciously deciding to close them in the first place. Stop that! Cue more yawnstare.

Reflection

First of all, how has it only been 48 hours since I started the experiment? It seems as if 7 or 8 days have passed. Strange.

Today was a victory. I was dangerously close to giving up early this morning around 8am, but managed to press onward. I don’t want sympathy, but I do want to make sure I’m documenting the experiment well – including the psychological battles. Having said that, it is encouraging to me to know that my friends know about this experiment. I imagine that if I was doing this experiment in secret it would have been easier to give up this morning. Instead I knew I had to keep going and give myself a legit chance at adapting. Giving up now would make all of the work in the previous 48 hours for nothing.

EXPERIMENT INDEX:

• Polyphasic Sleep Experiment – Day Zero
• Polyphasic Sleep Experiment – Day One
• Polyphasic Sleep Experiment – Day Two
• Why Polyphasic sleep? | A simple and compelling answer
• Polyphasic Sleep Experiment – Day Three
• Polyphasic Sleep Experiment – Day Four
• Polyphasic Sleep Experiment – The Epic Napstake (nap + mistake)
• Polyphasic Sleep Experiment – The Success, Conclusion, and Addiction

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It’s been a full 24 hours since I started my polyphasic sleep experiment (sleeping for 20 minutes every 4 hours around the clock) and I’m feeling great!  It’s hard to believe that its only been 24 hours… it seems more like 72 hours.  I think I’ve invented time travel.

The Chart

As promised, I’ve been recording my mental clarity, optimism towards the experiment, and how badly I want to sleep on an ordinal 0-10 scale.  I recorded these values 12 times during the past 24 hours and the resulting chart is below.  Pretty cool, huh?

The Facts

During the first two rest periods of the experiment, last night at 10pm and 2am, I couldn’t get to sleep at all. I was too excited thinking about the experiment – and like I mentioned in the last post, it normally takes me about 30 minutes to fall asleep anyways. That’s something that will have to change if I’m to successfully adapt to the polyphasic sleep schedule.

During the third rest period (this morning at 6am), I cheated and gave myself 45 minutes. Sleep at last! Something that helped me fall asleep was getting away from my computer, diming the lights in the room, and reading for 15 minutes beforehand. I would guess I got about 25 minutes of sleep. When the alarm went off I was momentarily disoriented but quickly jumped out of bed, turned on the lights, and got a glass of water.  I’m determined to not oversleep.

I spent most of the night working on website projects, listening to music, and roaming my apartment. The night seemed to last forever. I finished a couple small projects, read, walked outside, took some photos, order a new laptop, and talked to the night owls on twitter.

When the sun came up it provided a huge boost to mental clarify, optimism, and reduced how badly I wanted to sleep. I wonder if the night/day cycle will continue to have this influence on me or if it will fade over the next week or so.   Hmm…

During the day today I felt very good overall, but I found my energy level fluctuated quite a bit.  I expected this, and it honestly wasn’t as bad as I anticipated.  Maybe tonight/tomorrow will be worse.  So far the biggest way to improve my mental clarity and energy level seems to be:

• Going for a walk outside
• Eating
• Talking on the phone (funny sidenote: I made an important call to a prospective client this afternoon and although it went very well, there were two times where I just stopped mid thought and was completely lost with what I was saying and I had to gracefully recover and switch directions – oops!)
• Drinking lots of water

Diary of the Day

• 4:11 am – I just bought a new Toshiba laptop on eBay. (I need it for my visit to Hawaii after Christmas woop woop!) I’m worried that I may have actually bought a toaster oven or something due to my sketchy state of mind.
• 6:37 am – I’m definitely feeling tired. It makes me miss sleep. I can’t focus on that though. It’s cold and rainy outside… perfect sleeping weather. I find that I type letters out of ourder and wow I just misspelled “order”. Feeling tired and having to wake up early reminds me of final exams at Purude.
• 7:26 am – My eyes are dry and I find myself not doing much of anything except staring off into space. My computer screensaver coming on pulls me back to reality.
• 7:39 am – What a relief – the sun is coming up! I’m having trouble doing basic tasks like preparing a check and envelope to pay my utilities.
• 8:10 am – Waves of positivity! I’m following up with prospective clients, the sun is coming up, and I just got a nice email from Mom. Ps – I find myself really thirsty?
• 9:30 am – Looking forward to the 10 o’clock nap. I hope I can sleep again. I may opt for another 45 minute session to make sure I can fall asleep. Yawn, stare. (I wonder if yawnstare.com is available…)
• 12:04 pm – Feeling really good right now after a brisk walk to the post office. Feeling almost normal I’d say.
• 3:10 pm – Despite not feeling tired before my 2pm rest I fell asleep pretty quickly (this is encouraging!). I’d guess I slept for maybe 30 minutes – bringing my grand total for the last 24 hours to just under 1:30. Once again I was in a deep sleep when my alarm went off – it took me a few seconds to realize where I was and what was going on, but then I popped right out of bed. Time feels weird right now. I’m used to sleep representing the break between two days… so in my mind it’s almost as if 4 or 5 short days have passed. Very strange.
• 5:00 pm – I feel really great considering the lack of sleep. I can already sense the huge benefit of these frequent micro-naps. They really are quite restorative it seems. The next 24 hours will be interesting and tell a lot. I’m excited.

Reflection

I feel liberated. Liberated from wasting a huge chunk of my time in unconscious sleep. It sounds strange but it’s amazing how peaceful I feel knowing how much time I have available.

Let me explain how a normal day goes (that is, a normal sleep schedule).  For the first couple hours after I wake up I tend to procrastinate because I feel as if I have plenty of time ahead of me to be productive. Then, when it’s getting towards the end of the night, I tend to get a lot accomplished because I feel as if I’ve been procrastinating all day and I need to accomplish something before I surrender the day and go sleep for 8 hours (and repeat the cycle). I hustle at the end of the day to make up for my earlier procrastination and I procrastinate because I know I can hustle later. Ack!

Now my whole world’s been turned upside down – and I love it.

I no longer procrastinate because I know I only have about three hours until my next rest. As a result, I never hustle because I’m not trying to make up for any procrastination AND I know that whatever I don’t get finished I can pick up on after my next rest – 30 minutes later.

Under monophasic sleep there is more pressure to complete a project before resting – because the rest period is so long and makes such a dramatic division between work days. I don’t feel this dramatic division. If a project isn’t completed in one session, I can just pause, rest, and pick up where I left off 45 minutes later. It’s a very efficient way to produce steady, relaxed results – without my usual fluctuations of procrastination/hustle.

Oops, it’s 6:04 – time for a rest!

EXPERIMENT INDEX:

• Polyphasic Sleep Experiment – Day Zero
• Polyphasic Sleep Experiment – Day One
• Polyphasic Sleep Experiment – Day Two
• Why Polyphasic sleep? | A simple and compelling answer
• Polyphasic Sleep Experiment – Day Three
• Polyphasic Sleep Experiment – Day Four
• Polyphasic Sleep Experiment – The Epic Napstake (nap + mistake)
• Polyphasic Sleep Experiment – The Success, Conclusion, and Addiction

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Every since I first read about polyphasic sleep in 2007 it has lingered in the back of my mind. Taking a 20 minute nap every 4 hours around the clock… is it possible? Could my body adjust? Could I function? Would I have the energy to exercise, or would I sit around in a daze? (twenty minute naps around the clock adds up to about 2 hours of sleep per 24 hour period).  Well, I’m going to try it.

But… why?

The first thing that appeals to me about this concept is that it’s just plain weird. Secondly, the challenge seems nearly impossible. That is, the challenge to not give in to sleep deprivation and oversleep during the adjustment phase (which can last up to two weeks).

A normal sleep cycle lasts about an hour and a half and has four separate phases of brain activity. The final phase of the cycle is the REM (rapid eye movement) phase, which is the most restorative of the four. The goal of polyphasic sleep is to train the body to skip the three phases that aren’t as restorative and get straight to the REM phase. Dreams occur in the REM phase of sleep, so I’ll know I’m making progress towards adjustment when I start remembering dreams after my 20 minute naps – indicating my body is getting straight to the REM and skipping the other phases.

Is it possible?

Working for myself as a web developer, I have the flexibility of making my own schedule.  This will allow me to strictly adhere to my new schedule while I (hopefully) adjust.  However, there are two huge forces that will be colliding head on during this experiment. First, my love of sleep (usually over 9 hours a night) and dreaming (I keep a fascinating dream log), and secondly, my determination to not give up.

My sleep patterns are pretty chaotic right now, so hopefully this is an advantage as I adjust to a new schedule since I won’t have to “unlearn” a schedule first.

I’ve read about Steve Pavlina’s switch to polyphasic sleep (he kept it up for over 5 months) so I think I understand what to expect (Steve used the word “hellish” to describe the first week of adjustment *nervous laugh*).

Some Ground Rules

Here are the basic rules I’ll follow to get started:

• Sleep Rules
  • No oversleeping
  • No oversleeping! This is the most crucial rule I must follow, as oversleeping once will set my adaption schedule back days at a time
  • I will set my alarm clock on the other side of the room so I have to get out of bed and walk over to it when it goes off
  • I will nap at 10am, 2pm, 6pm, 10pm, 2am, and 6am around the clock.
  • I will start naps within +/- 10 minutes of scheduled time during the adaption phase.  After I’m adjusted I should be able to delay naps by as much as 1-2 hours if needed.
  • Seriously, no oversleeping
• Diet
  • Eat light snacks between naps; avoiding heavy foods, excessive carbs, and red meat.
  • No caffeine or candy (ouch!).  Caffeine is known to disrupt the REM phase of sleep and I’m afraid sugar would prevent me from falling asleep on time.
• Awake time
  • During the adjustment phase, get outside once per period for a walk or light exercise
  • Keep the lights on during awake time
  • Create short, achievable  “to-do” lists for each 4 hour awake session.
  • Use pushups, going for a walk, or stretching to help wake from naps
• Safety
  • No driving during night time awake sessions

Why Blog about it?

I’d like to post daily updates on my progress, challenges, and overall sanity for three reasons:

1. Accountability
2. It’s fun to share the experience
3. It will motivate me to succeed

Tonight will be my first night of the experiment, so I expect to be pretty exhausted tomorrow. My body will also have to adjust to falling asleep more quickly – as it normally takes me at least 30 minutes to fall asleep at night.

Visualizing the Adjustment

I will periodically record my mental clarity, optimism, and fatigue levels on an ordinal 0-10 scale. I will then graph these values over time as the week goes on. Hopefully this will be an interesting visual to track my progress.

At the official start of the experiment:

Mental clarity – 10
Optimism – 10
Fatigue – 0

We’ll see how long the optimism stays at “10″… I feel like I’m sprinting up the foothills of Mt. Everest.  It won’t be long before the air gets thin.  Let’s do this!

[subscribe by rss or by email to follow my experiment]

[UPDATE 11/17 4:00 am: My goal is to keep the experiment going for two weeks in order to give my body a legitimate chance at adaptation.  If all is going well I anticipate extending the experiment indefinitely.]

EXPERIMENT INDEX:

• Polyphasic Sleep Experiment – Day Zero
• Polyphasic Sleep Experiment – Day One
• Polyphasic Sleep Experiment – Day Two
• Why Polyphasic sleep? | A simple and compelling answer
• Polyphasic Sleep Experiment – Day Three
• Polyphasic Sleep Experiment – Day Four
• Polyphasic Sleep Experiment – The Epic Napstake (nap + mistake)
• Polyphasic Sleep Experiment – The Success, Conclusion, and Addiction

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I just noticed an article on LinkedIn with the title, ”You have 10 seconds to catch a hiring manager’s attention with your resume. Is yours good enough to stand out and get noticed? Email info@yourjobAD.com or visit our LinkedIn page!”  The article was posted in the Purdue Alumni group on LinkedIn.

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There. I said it. And I am sick and tired of watching these so-called “social media experts” push social media on companies like its some cure-all.

We’re in the middle of a market phenomenon. You’ve got this new technology that’s radically new, difficult to quantitatively measure, and marinated in hype from all angles. Now add a massive market of organizations that aren’t tech savvy enough to fully “get it” but are just savvy enough to know they need to “join the conversation” and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.

Here’s the thing. As a consultant, regardless of the industry, it’s your job to provide the best solution – and it ain’t always social media.

I’ll believe that someone is a “social media expert” the moment I see them turn down a big job because they don’t think social media marketing is the right solution for the prospect.

When the only tool you have is a hammer, it is tempting to treat everything as if it were a nail.

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The easiest way to enter a service industry market is to compete on price, but it won’t get you very far. Many small businesses and freelancers figure they have to start somewhere, so why not charge less than everyone else? “We can raise our price when we have a portfolio and testimonials”, they reason.

Don’t do it.

Competing on price, especially in a service industry, is a trap. I know because I was there.

“But I’m desperate!”

I understand. I’ve been there too. But let’s look into this and see where it takes us.  First, I’ll play out an example of where competing on price can lead you. Then I’ll talk about why we do it and how to avoid it.

A highway to nowhere

I’ll use the example of a web developer, but the principles can be applied to any service industry:

Imagine a prospective client contacts you. They’re looking for a cheap website. Excited that someone wants to hire you and unwilling to let them slip through your fingers, you sign on the dotted line. Sure, you realize you’re undercharging them, but it’s positive cash flow, right?

Fast forward a month. You’ve already spent 50 hours on the project and they keep asking for more. You find yourself lamenting about how little you’re being paid – and your work begins to feel like slavery. Naturally, the quality of your service (and the friendly tone of your emails) fades slightly. You deliver the project, but neither party is thrilled.

Repeat this half a dozen times over the next few months. Here’s where the damage starts multiplying.

Now, you’re busy working for 6 clients who keep trying to get more out of you while complaining about every fee. You’re not happy. Your clients aren’t happy. You’re not feeling too enthusiastic about work or bringing in new projects. Your clients aren’t feeling too enthusiastic about telling their friends about your service.

The other route? Work with quality companies that understand the importance of a mutually beneficial agreement. If they’re smart they’ll want to keep you happy because they want you to continue to be alert, interested, and proactive in service. The value of a good relationship is well worth skipping the black holes out there. But you know this. I know this. Which begs the question…

Why do we do it?

Laziness. Lower your price enough and someone is bound to hire you.  Elance, oDesk, and Guru make it so easy. Just fill out some forms, list your services, and provide a (low) hourly rate and watch the inquiries flood your inbox. I have nothing against these sites. In fact, I use oDesk on occasion to outsource certain pieces of development. However, if you’re interested in growing a business or a personal brand these sites are a highway to nowhere.

Avoiding the low cost trap

The first step to avoid the low cost trap is believing that your service is valuable.  The second step is the confidence to convey that belief and the communication skills to convey that value to the prospect. Sometimes this happens through subtleties in your first communication, and other times it’s rather direct. Here’s an example of a very direct approach that I used recently.

The direct approach

I received an email from an acquaintance asking two simple questions: “How much would it cost to make a basic website for my church?” and “How much would it cost per month?” Okay, this is good. Someone is interested in hiring me. However, their straight-to-the-price approach is a little tricky to defuse. Obviously, I don’t want them to hire me because I’m the cheapest (although that’s how I used to operate). I want them to hire me because they see the value of what I provide and know its well worth paying for.

The following is my response. I tried to absorb this original question, add some magic, and respond in the best way possible. After all, this first interaction is absolutely crucial in setting the stage for a long-term business relationship. The delicacy of this email cannot be overstated.

John,

Great! I’d be excited to work with your church to develop a basic website. In fact, just last weekend I just finished a basic website for a church in Danville called First Baptist Danville (http://firstbaptistdanville.com/). I enjoyed the project very much and I’m sure I would also enjoy working with your church to get something really nice and functional set up for them.

It’s difficult to give a cost estimate before talking through the project scope, but I know that’s not a very useful answer so I’ll try to do my best with what information I have. For a basic website similar to what I’ve done for First Baptist Danville, the cost would be between $XXXX and $XXXX with a monthly fee of $XXX (which includes hosting, email, support, updates, visitor tracking, and everything else they would need to continue improving the website over time).

I’m not the cheapest developer out there. In fact, I don’t compete on price. I compete on quality and service, which in my 8 years experience I’ve found to be more important than price when creating healthy, win-win relationships. I love website development and it’s my goal to provide the best possible value on every project. It’s a thrill for me!

These are ballpark figures that will change once we can talk a little more about the project. Who should I contact to discuss the project in greater depth?

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts,

Drew

555-555-5555

Now the ball is in their court. I’ve clearly communicated my value and my confidence in that value. How they respond next will determine if they’re seeking the cheapest developer available or if they just don’t know how to inquire about a website.

I’ve learned not to automatically label everyone that asks about price as a “low cost seeker”. Many people who aren’t familiar with your particular industry don’t know how to talk about your service so they start with what they know, price. The fun part is trying to lead them from the “how much does it cost” question towards more important questions like “how can your service improve our sales?”

I love this quote from Harry Beckwith’s Selling The Invisible:

People almost always can find a cheaper way to get your service – and few efforts are less rewarding than trying to compete with those cheaper ways.

I’ve given you a glimpse at how this plays out in the web development industry. Have you experienced something similar in your industry? Let me know.  Do you think these principals also apply to retail/product industries?  Hit up the comments below and share your experience.

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A few years ago I caught myself asking a lot of double questions. It goes like this – I ask you a very broad question immediately followed by a second question to help guide you towards your answer.

Here’s an example. I might ask you, “How was the weather yesterday? Did it rain?” See what I did there? I open with a very broad question and then, before you have a chance to answer, I follow it with a specific (often yes/no) related question. Your response to the weather question might be, “No, the rain actually just missed us”. This fascinates me. I’m not sure if the first question helps frame the real question, “Did it rain?”, or is the first question the main one and the second question added to help steer your answer? Either way, the double question is a peculiar adaptation that many people use to make conversations easier.

More examples:

• “How was traffic? Did you make it on time?”
• “How was the party? Was there a good turn out?
• “How was the game? Did you win?”
• “What did she say? Was she upset?”
• “What did he look like? Did he have blonde hair?”

It seems first question breaks the ice for the second question – the real question we want answered.  What do you think? Am I crazy for even noticing this?*

See if you notice yourself asking double questions.

*Look, I even do it in my writing!

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