I have never needed a lot of sleep. And yet if I am traveling business class internationally I will sleep for the entire flight. Former colleagues will attest that on a number of occasions I have slept the entire 14 hours between Sydney and LA.
Most week nights, though, I get less than six hours. My sleep hour has moved back with age and digital connectivity. It’s usually way after midnight before I actually fall asleep. The last thing I do before I sleep is also the first thing I do when I awake: check my emails for urgent work issues and twitter for news.
I am constantly wired. And here’s why:
- I say yes to everything. Well, everything might be an exaggeration but I can’t say no to compelling ideas. I am involved in a number of not-for-profit boards but also a fabulous startup with a couple of girlfriends. As well, I will always make myself available to offer advice to friends in business. The upside is that I rarely leave any of the meetings without a new idea for the media business that I run as publishing director. The downside is that my mind becomes so full of great ideas that I can’t sleep.
- Too much to read, so little time. The wonderful thing about the digital era is that we can read whatever we want, whenever and wherever we want. Who has time to sleep when there are so many wonderful new books to get through? I am currently falling asleep each night with Pamela Williams’ Killing Fairfax. Hard to put down. Paul Brannigan’s This Is A Call, about the life of Dave Grohl, is waiting in line.
- The publishing industry has so many possibilities. I have worked in the newspaper, magazine and digital businesses and I am a passionate believer in the idea of the medium for the moment. We choose the channel to consume media that suits our needs or desires at the time. I have woken up at 3am from a dream about how we incite desire in our readers, and then how that desire becomes a regular need. Yes I know. Not normal behaviour. Passionate behaviour.
- There is always the next big thing. I am constantly dreaming up the next big thing within the existing websites that I manage. More often than not I never speak of my big ideas because when considered rationally and in the context of our business they aren’t actually possible. But every now and then a star idea is born.
- My sons will cough. There is a phenomenon that only a mother will ever understand. It’s the ability to hear your child’s slight change of breath from the other side of the house in the middle of the night. I am a heavy sleeper. Once I am down, I am well and truly out. My husband arrives home from work most nights after midnight. I don’t hear him enter the house or even get into bed if I am already asleep. But if one of my sons coughs, even mildly, my eyes are open and I’m ready to spring out of bed.
- Twitter. I signed on to twitter in January 2009, the day I was introduced to it by the CTO I was working alongside at the time. I have never looked back. Admittedly it appears to be a tool primarily used by journalists, marketers, politicians and trolls, but it is also the most fun anyone can have while walking in an uneven line along a sidewalk. It’s how I access the news as it breaks and as a journalist I like to be connected to breaking news 24/7. Twitter is the last thing I check before turning out the lights.
- The future feels uncertain. Tomorrow we vote for the team we want to run the country. I have never felt so depressed about any single election in the 30 years that I have been eligible to vote. There is no inspiring option. How do you choose between the bad and the worse? I suspect I will be awake all night worrying about it.