Sleep and Productivity

I was reading this article about how waking up 1-hour earlier can make you 100X more productive and I have to admit to having some misgivings.

Yes what the article suggests is true but the author waited till the end to address something that was bugging me. If I get up an hour earlier - does that mean I'm losing an hour of sleep? No the author contends at the end of the article - just go to bed an hour earlier. Start the day right and end the day right.

Good advice as recent medical studies have shown the absolute necessity for proper sleep (see Matthew Walker's book Why We Sleep for in depth details) but easier said than done. Balancing work, family and social life can often make just getting the proper amount of sleep a challenge never mind then adding in the Ben Franklin maxim of "Early to be, early to rise..."

I also kept hearing the voice of Naval Ravikant in the back of my head. I can't recall the exact quote or where I heard it but I remember Naval talking about how true wealth was equated with freedom and one of the examples he used was of the alarm clock. How infrequently you need an alarm clock can be representative of how much freedom you have and thus how truly wealthy you are. If I need an alarm clock to get up that extra hour early and I giving up some of my freedom to try to get more productivity? Isn't the function of being more productive to be more wealthy and free? See what I'm saying?

In my life I've come to what I believe is a happy medium. I recognize the need to be more productive; I recognize the need to get a proper night's sleep and I've made "getting up" one of my seven priorities for the day (maybe I'll list all seven some other time). By getting up I mean when your body is awake and going back to sleep would be a struggle. Not a getting up and at 'em because you awoke in the middle of the night because you had to pee but getting up because you're awake and have been for 20 minutes or more. (Normally I say it has to be after 4:30 am for this "rule" to apply - I'm not a masochist.) Once out of bed you start being productive - taking advantage of that time that maybe previously you spent just lingering in bed.

Anyway those were my thoughts on sleep. And I should add that I'm a big fan of naps.