Having just had a very long weekend, and feeling particularly overwhelmed with so much new stuff to keep a track of, I’m reminded how important it is to get enough sleep. With everything from the US elections to my new writing group happening right now and need my attention right now, there’s always a strong temptation to stay up late and just read that, do that, watch that, write that.

Note to self: go to bed!

(Well, not now, but at the appropriate time.)

Unfortunately, I often need reminding that getting enough sleep is critical. If I even hope to do what these days I try to do — perform more than just adequately at my day job while also becoming a writer — I have to wake up relatively fresh 9 mornings out of 10. Apart from the substantial negative effects on cognitive function of sleep deprivation, any creative activity requires some degree of alertness. Both my ‘normal’ work in science and fiction writing are creative industries, albeit of rather different sorts. Neither is achieved simply by sitting down and cranking out the hours (though that helps). Each is a process as much as a product, and I can’t just tread water in either if I want to achieve the kinds of things I want to achieve — publications and sales, grants and commissions, recognition and, well, recognition.

So sleep is one of the keystones of my lifestyle. If I stay up late, it’s actually something of a set-back, and that is doubly true if I stay up late doing something essentially useless, like reading blogs. (That’s not to say that reading blogs is always a waste of time, but I can almost guarantee that if I’ve got Google Reader in front of me after 10 PM, I should probably call it a night.)

The problem is, it’s always very tempting to stay up late doing useless things. This breaks down, for me, into two nefarious strands. First, it’s the Internet, man. There’s always something new, interesting, exciting, surprising, challenging, entertaining or just plain weird to see, even among the relatively few sites that I follow. I could probably sit at my computer 24 hours a day reading blog posts and news items and science sites and this and that and the other.

Second, there’s the spectre of tomorrow. No, this isn’t some dystopian vision that I’ve got stuck in my head like the music of a manufactured pop band. It’s the simple fact that tomorrow, there are Things to Do. These Things might not be particularly onerous, time-consuming or challenging, but nonetheless they must be Done. In my little subjective world, going to sleep brings them that much closer, so not going to sleep is a form of procrastination. In fact, I think it might be the most insidious and destructive form of procrastination that I know (and I consider myself something of an expert) because it makes it more difficult to ensure that the Things get Done. There’s also the vicious cycle in which staying up late makes it harder to resist the temptation to stay up late the next night.

Note to self: underline previous note to self, then go to bed!

If you’re reading this past 10 PM, I can tell you with some degree of certainty that the only way this won’t have been a waste of your time is if you close your browser, shut down the computer, and go to bed.

And don’t forget to brush your teeth!