If you’re hoping to make a success of working from home, you probably already know the importance of good time management. The key is to set yourself a routine that takes all of your different responsibilities — work, meetings, family — as well as your own personal needs — social life, relaxation time, sleep — into account. Finding the right work-life balance isn’t just important for your physical and mental wellbeing — it can also make a difference in how productive you are in your professional life.
Sometimes it might feel like there just aren’t enough hours in the day. Working from home is even more complicated when you are balancing work and family life in the same space. It might be tempting to pull an all-nighter, to make sure you fit it all in, but that’s not healthy in the long run. You need sleep to keep going, to stay healthy and focused enough to face the challenges — and opportunities — the morning brings.
Don’t despair — it is possible to be successful working from home, even while taking care of your family. It helps to set firm boundaries for how you allocate your time , and physical space, to minimise distractions during the day. Top tip — set your schedule the night before, to clear your ‘mental deck’ before you go to sleep.
It’s important to spend quality time with your loved ones — not just fixate on a screen for a couple of hours before bedtime. Being mindful about how you spend your valuable time will help you identify your priorities — and that can only be good for your career in the long term.
All this is good, solid, common sense advice on how to set healthy boundaries to balance your career and personal life. However, when it comes to some super successful (and super rich) people, it seems that those healthy boundaries get pushed to the limit, stretched beyond what the doctor would recommend, and sometimes pummeled beyond recognition.
Online Mattress Review have gathered information on the evening and sleep routines of 50 highly successful people from different walks of life, to see who is, and who really isn’t, prioritising a healthy work-life balance in their daily routine. From artists and entertainers, to political figures, sports stars, and leaders in business and finance, all of these people are at the top of their fields (and in many cases, the rich lists, too), but some may be sacrificing a good night’s sleep to stay there.
Everybody’s different, of course, but in general adults need between 7 and 9 hours of sleep every night to refresh their minds and bodies. Older adults may need a little less, and teenagers a little more. So it seems that the environmental activist Greta Thunberg is right on target, as the 17 year-old gets a solid 9 hours’ sleep every night. She also takes care of her well-being with a healthy pre-bed routine of dinner, socializing, and reading.
The actress, model, and celebrity influencer Kim Kardashian also allots a 9-hour portion of her day to sleep, but in contrast to Thunberg’s restful evening routine, Kardashian is a workaholic. She takes a little time out to eat and put her kids to bed, but otherwise she works right up until bedtime.
A full nights’ sleep is also important for some athletes, which makes sense considering the energy they expend working out, training, and competing during the daytime. Pro basketballer Stephen Curry and Patriots quarterback Tom Brady both chalk up 9 hours every night, and pro golfer Tiger Woods comes close with 8.5 hours. Unlike Kardashian, though, they relax their minds and bodies in the evening with food, friends, and family, after exerting themselves during the day.
At the opposite end of the sleep spectrum, some people just don’t sleep very much at all. It seems that, for some highly successful and driven characters, they not only get by, but manage to thrive on, only a few hours or bedrest a day. The most extreme examples of this are the 45th President of America, Donald Trump, and celebrity chef, Gordon Ramsay, who both get a meagre 3 hours of sleep a day.
Their pre-sleep routines are also contrary to most medical advice, as they both work right before bedtime. It’s likely that Ramsay’s late nights are dictated somewhat by the gruelling schedule of a top restaurateur. At least he manages to squeeze a little social time into his evening, before hitting the kitchens. Trump, on the other hand, doesn’t even stop work to eat.
The sleep routines of highly successful and powerful people provide an interesting insight into the pressures of being driven and passionate about your career, but they don’t have to serve as a model for how you live your life. In fact, from this infographic, it’s clear that there are a wide variety of routines and schedules that can support a successful career. It can actually be useful to see which people’s routines might be worth emulating — or avoiding.
