#461 How NOT to Show Up for a Meeting

In our last couple +1s we talked about my iPhone pickle addiction and then we talked about how those 25 minutes of wasted time add up to 2 years (!!!) of your life. (That number blows me away every time I think about it. 25 minutes per day = 2 YEARS of your life! Wow.)

Today I want to combine the pickle and the 25.

Specifically: My recent 25 minutes of wasted time was too often spent on my phone reading news. (Note to self: Remember the Farts and Facebook Likes +1 and restrict your news to only offline sources!)

So… The other day I found something particularly remarkable (for me) in the seemingly endless cascade of “That’s REALLY happening in the world?” moments.

Now, I deliberately don’t dive into politics in our work together. And, I plan to remain out of that fray for now. As such, I shall leave this particular individual we’re going to talk about today anonymous.

So… As I was wasting my 25 minutes the other day (hah), I saw that a world-leader boasted about the fact that he hadn’t slept for 25 hours before (arguably) one of the most important meetings anyone is going to have this year.

No sleep for 25 hours before that meeting?

My face immediately went into a lemon-biting grimace. 🍋 😜

REALLY?

Imagine: You have an important meeting with significant potential international consequences and you think it would be a good idea to go into that meeting without sleeping for over a day? (REALLY?)

Now, this individual clearly hasn’t watched Optimal Sleep 101 but I immediately thought to myself, “Bragging about the fact that you went into ANY meeting without sleeping for 25 hours (let alone one of that magnitude) is like saying, ‘Yah!! I showed up to that meeting stumbling drunk—I had like 8 drinks right before. Impressive, eh? Aren’t I (hiccup) awesome?!”

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…

*rubs eyes in disbelief*

Yah.

So…. What does Professor Google have to say about it? Well, here’s the first result (thank you Elle magazine—hah): “One standout finding is that a lack of sleep affects the body the same way drinking alcohol does. Research found that after 17 hours without sleep, our alertness is similar to the effects of a blood alcohol concentration of 0.05%, which according to U.S. law is considered ‘impaired’ on the legally drunk scale.”

And, for curious souls, here’s the actual study. The final words of that paper are pretty good and relevant to our discussion: “The results also imply that many countries which set allowable [blood alcohol content levels] BACs at the point that compromises safe performance should consider developing similar standards for fatigue to ensure that people who have had 18 hours or longer without sleep are kept from at risk behaviours such as driving, piloting aircraft, or operating machinery.”

Or, perhaps, ahem, negotiating complex political deals?

Today’s +1.

Don’t show up to important meetings drunk. (Hah.)

Yep. That should do for today.

(Oh! And, let’s not vote for people who do.)