It doesn’t matter who you are, what you do or where you do it, one thing unites us as entrepreneurs – we all want to be more efficient and productive at what we do.
There is a lot of advice out there on how to achieve this, whether it is the latest ‘game-changing’ productivity app for your phone or an essential ‘e-book’ you simply must download and read.
However, while there may be merit to the above, there is one tip consistently overlooked, despite it being one of most effective – and cost effective – lifehacks you can ever adopt as an entrepreneur. What is it?
Get more sleep of course!
Good-quality sleep brings countless benefits, from a better mood, to better relationships, to better health. It also makes you more productive and a better entrepreneur.
Here are just three of the countless ways that getting more sleep will make you a better entrepreneur.
1. Good sleep makes you more likeable
There are many factors that makes a good entrepreneur: you must have a good product or idea, you’ve got to work hard and you need a lot of luck.
You also have to be make connections and network, and one thing is for sure, if you are likeable life as an entrepreneur is going to be a lot easier.
Sleep makes you more likeable. Or to be more accurate, tired people are less likeable.
Networking is all about cultivating interpersonal relationships – and it’s hard to connect with potential clients or customers if you’re grouchy, impatient or yawning right up in their faces.
What’s more sleep deprivation leads to a lack of emotional intelligence, including a noticeable reduction in our ability to properly understand people’s facial expressions, which hinders our ability to make a connections with them. Which makes us less likeable.
No matter how good your product is, it is going to be harder to sell it if the person you are trying to sell it to doesn’t like you.
2. Good sleeps lead to better decision making
As an entrepreneur you are your own boss, you are responsible for your own success and you live and die on your ability to make good decisions. Often multiples times a day. Simple as that.
Poor sleep has a big impact on your cognitive ability. This impact is felt in two main ways, speed and accuracy. Sleep-deprived individuals react slower and make more mistakes. This obviously affects an individual’s ability to make complex decisions, especially if given one, two, three or multiple choices.
I’m sure you’ve heard the expression ‘let’s sleep on it’. The delaying of an important decision until one or both parties have had the chance to think it over for a night. Well, there is wisdom to the old saying, well-rested people make better decisions.
Those who make better decisions are better entrepreneurs. And with this new knowledge investing in something more comfortable to sleep on from sites like https://www.mybestmattress.com is very important. This could be the best decisions you make today.
3. Good sleep means good health
It may not be immediately obvious why good health is important to being a good entrepreneur. But believe me it is essential.
Most normal working people have the benefit of regular working hours, holiday time and sick leave. Most intrepid entrepreneurs work for themselves, meaning they work as long and as hard as needed.
And that often means very long and very hard – at least in the early days.
Long working hours and stress often means less time spent in bed. Which is unfortunate because chronic sleep deprivation has been shown to play a role in a range of conditions; anything from heart disease to heart attacks, diabetes, obesity and stress.
And while dropping dead is certainly not likely to be part of your business plan, neither is having to take a week of every couple of months with the flu.
Luckily sleep can help on both counts. Quality sleep, and by that I mean 8-hours a night, can extend your life, make you more resistant to long term health problems and give the body’s immune system an almighty boost.
Good sleep makes it less likely you will succumb to ailments like the flu and more likely you will recover from them quickly if you do.
And when your competitors are at home in their sick beds with their chicken soup, who is going to be out there cleaning up? You that’s who!
There you go – three top reasons that adding more sleep to your schedule will help you become a better entrepreneur. It will also make you better looking but that is a story for another day.
Now get some sleep and this time next year you will be a millionaire!