Its a new year, and although I am giving myself a weeks leeway until I make resolutions (the advantage of having a birthday on January 7, coupled with an intense december, means I need a week off for vacation) I am considering implementing a huge new lifestyle change: polyphasic sleep.

Buckminster Fuller successfully employed this sleep schedule for years.  He slept four times per day, for thirty minutes at a time, every six hours.

With a flexibly scheduled job, a nice car with heated seats, and a disciplined mind, I could put this lifestyle to great effect.  The opportunities it gives, a full six hours more of life every day, is extraordinary.  I would be able to devote three of those extra hours to personal projects that I currently have trouble finding time for, and the other three hours to transitions, an I would have quite an extraordinary life.

The only downside is that this schedule must be rigidly maintained.  Without regimentation, it falls apart; a skipped nap means your body is not dropping into the deep REM that it desperately needs on a daily basis, and falling off the horse means you lose fifteen hours to catching up on sleep.  Plus, I have heard the first week is very difficult to master, before you are in the groove.

But once in the groove, this lifestyle presents so many advantages, I feel I have got to try it.  You can have six naps a day for 20 minutes, but I like the four 30 minute naps better.  I would nap at 5 and 11 pm, am and pm.  The divisions of my day would follow the buddhist monk’s cycle of work, rest, play, and meditation.

The first quarter day, from 11 pm to 5 am, would be my personal time.  I could exercise, write, read, meditate, do anything and everything I care to, for the house would be mine alone.  The world would be all mine.

The second quarter, from 5 am to 11 am, would transition between home and work.  I would take these first two naps in the family bed, and probably leave for work early.  My mastermind meetings end just in time to get to my office, settle in, and then dash out to my car for a nap on the top floor of my parking garage.  I could work in the morning on my projects, my writing, and my true career path.

After this nap, I would work for my day job, and sell car insurance for five hours straight.  An intense five hours, I have found, is more productive than a lazy twelve.  Smarter, not hard, is the name of this game.

After my final nap, I would come home and be with my family 100% until they go to sleep.  Because I have completed all other tasks for my day, I would be able to devote my full attention to them, instead of the half focus I find myself giving when I am not complete in the other areas of my life.

To be a good father, and a good husband, I must be a complete man, first.  Polyphasic sleep could be a great help to those goals.