Ben Wills

Friday, March 28th, 2008

Links of Interest

Instead of the usual nutrition/fitness stuff, I figured I’d put together a list of some things that have caught my eye over the past week or so.

• PatrickRhone.com - One of my new favorite blogs. One of the best designs I’ve seen in a long time, great writing, and similar interests. I’m not quite there on the GTD stuff, but his interest in it seems to bring forth other great things like this 37 Signals article on Workplace Experiments. For those that have worked with me in the past, it’ll be quite clear why I like that post.
• Confident Goal Setting - I’m currently constructing an ontology for improvement, and this post references a great experiment that took a person of “average intelligence,” worked with them for 3-5 hours a week, and brought that person’s memory level (tested by memorizing random strings of numbers) to that of the best memories in the world…well, within the realm of random number. I’m waiting on the specific details of the experiment, but you can see how well this fits in with deliberate practice and expert performance.
• Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Sleep - When it suddenly hit me that sleep was simply a series of chemical reactions in the body, I started researching further to see how it could be hacked for more optimal performance (ie: less sleep, more benefits). This article is mostly geared toward the chemical process of sleep, and is certain to help lead you to more specific research and questions.
• AnyWired.com - A new blog I found today about the cross between lifestyle design, entrepreneurship, and doing business online. Sounds comforting.

Monday, March 24th, 2008

I Want Your Input: Sleep Experiments

So, I don’t really like sleep…other than the fact that it’s nice after significant physical exertion. But still, it kinda cramps my productivity. So I’m going to try and do less of it.

Those that know me, know that I’m fairly particular about sleep. I usually keep uncommon hours and often have no sleep schedule whatsoever other than “when I’m tired.”

This year, I’ve been trying to hack at the system of sleep a bit more precisely. I’ve done a fair amount of research and have discovered that, simply put, sleep is a series of chemical reactions in your body. I’ll explain more about what those are and what they do in a later post.

I’m definitely not up for polyphasic sleep in 20 minute cycles. It’s just not socially convenient in any way, shape, or form, and I can’t even imagine not getting into a longer flow-state.

However, 3 hours of sleep at night, with a 90 minute nap, like this guy, seems plausible. It would also fit in with my natural sleep habits.

So, my question to you all is this: What sleep experiments have you done? What research do you know about that I may benefit from?

I’ll be putting together the results of my research before next week - which is when I plan on starting the new sleep habit.