Sleep Better during Accounting Busy Season

Well, while I could offer several other solutions, this one is quite effective in itself if you do it correctly.  The trick to sleeping less during busy season and maintaining your edge is to increase the quality of your sleep.  If you sleep poorly during busy season then you will never manage to perform your work at the level in which you need to in order to succeed.

So first of all, anyone who tells you that it isn’t possible to be a successful accountant on only a few hours of sleep a night (4-6 hours) is simply wrong.  After interviewing several successful partners at the biggest, most competitive public accounting firms, I can personally tell you that I haven’t met one that admits to getting 8 hours of sleep nightly.  So how do they do it?

There are actually some pretty steadfast rules to doing this – people have been thriving on 4-6 hour of sleep for ages, yet it remains one of the best kept secrets around.  Many of your co-workers even utilize these tools, however it just isn’t something that comes up on a regular basis.  You don’t have to take drugs to sleep better, and often times these drugs have harmful side effects such as grogginess or develop drug dependencies that simply aren’t conducive to having a professional career.  In the long term, you will crash and burn unless you do this right the first time.  Some of the people you know that have the great habit of sleeping deeper in less time might even not even realize how they are doing it because it is just an extension of some great habits they have made in other areas of their lives.  Therefore, when you ask them how they do it, it is quite possible that they actually don’t know.  Now, you can find out once and for all.

Get in the right mental state

Probably the most effective tool for sleeping less and getting up earlier during busy season for accountants is to have the right psychology.  If you are passionate about your life and what you are doing with it professionally, then looking forward to what you are doing the next morning will motivate you to get out of bed.  Who wants to sleep when you could be doing something better?  Like furthering your career, pushing closer toward your goal, etc.

Beyond that, try to work on your attitude about waking up early not only during accounting busy season, but in general.  Often times people that have problems waking up early do this because they simply like to sleep in and don’t realize what they are missing by waking up early.  Try the tips below:

• Make a list of all the things you like about waking up early.  Such a list could include your favorite breakfast meals, exercising before you start the day, reading/watching the news, cleaning your house, and being the first to get to work.
• Come up with a really fun morning routine.  I used to try to make the most efficient/beneficial one, but to be honest we aren’t going to get out of bed unless we subconsciously want to.  At first, don’t worry about the consequences so much as long as you are getting up early.
• Make a list of all the reasons you don’t need to stay up late at night, and why you don’t like doing it.  List why it isn’t beneficial to you, and how it holds you back.
• Set a time in the evening that you will not work past – tell yourself its too late to keep working and force yourself to walk away, telling yourself you will have to get to it in the morning.  Perhaps you will need to get up extra early tomorrow in order to do it, but you are done for today.

After doing all of this, it is going to be very difficult not to wake up early during busy season.  With the right mental state, you will have the drive to make all the other changes in your life happen.  There are plenty of techniques out there on the mechanics of getting better sleep, but this is the driving force behind it.  Cheers and good luck to you during busy season!  Don’t forget to check out some other great ideas in our Busy Season Survival Guide!