Appreciating Your Stressful IT Job?

in the trenches asks: "I'm a married, 24-year-old male, and like many posters here on Slashdot I work in the IT industry. I currently work as a website developer (mostly design-related work), but I also do some Perl and PHP programming. As most of you probably have, I've often wondered if I wouldn't enjoy working in a less stressful environment. I've even gone as far as to wonder if I'd prefer some sort of factory job or similar over my current field of work. The problem is this, I LOVE developing websites, but I HATE the stress and responsability that comes with a the job. How do you all cope with the stress and responsability that seems to come hand-in-hand with an IT career?"

Comments

Stress, growth, individuals

[sydb]

Stress is what we feel when our current abilities are being challenged. It's also at these times that we grow as individuals - we learn to deal with situations which once caused stress, and hence become more capable. This applies whatever the cause of stress, even if it's a stupid boss that's doing your head in, you have to learn to deal with stupid bosses.

I think you're much to young to stop growing, much to young to run from stressful situations. I also think you're too young to be married, but your early marriage is associated with your personal needs to grow as individual. Maybe you've already grown all you want.

So obviously it's a personal choice how much stress you want to endure, taking into account how much you have already grown, how much you want to grow further, and your capability to do so.

Re:Stress, growth, individuals

[Kingpin]

Bravo. Your post basically sums up the experiences I've had during the past 3 months. Until late January, I was on my 6th year as a J2EE consultant. I was doing good - but I had run out of challenges in the company I was in. So I changed to another company, where I knew the CEO and I knew that he would just put me "out there", and I'd have to swim to survive.

The first 3 days in my new job, I spent on a project management course. The 4th day I was leading a meeting with a newly won customer, and for the past 3 months I've been working as a technical project manager for this customer.

For the first time in my life, I felt stress physically. I could feel my body complain about my concern for the project. I hated it. I managed to cope fairly good with it, as it was a passing sensation that lasted for only a couple of weeks.

I took a chance that challenged my abilities, I knew that I was asking for trouble doing it, I grew. I'm looking forward to using my newly won self-confidence on the next project.

My point: If you can cope with the stress (take it seriously, buy a book, talk to people), it will help you grow. If you cannot, well.. Some do postulate that IT workers are the modern factory workers.

Re:Stress, growth, individuals

[TwinkieStix]

I think that you could have managed yourself better. I work for a company that is growing rapidly. So, we get new VPs all the time who do the same thing. I operate under the philosophy that as the head of (or the entire) IT department, I need to manage my department too - not just the tasks given to me. If people are asking about the status of projects constantly, set up a project management web site such as this one (it's the one I use). If they don't want to look at the pretty Gantt chart on the web, print it out every morning so that you can just hand it to them.

Sure, this kind of stuff takes time, but IT is a service to the other departments (we don't make money for the company, we make efficiencies for the departments), so you must act like everybody is the customer. If the customer demands frequent status reports, then that's what the customer gets. You will slow down because of this, but you are actually making yourself look more professional, and the customer will be happier.

If you start getting backed up, simply say, "if you want that done in the requested amount of time, I'll need to hire an employee to help me out." Trust me, I grew a 1-person IT department to a nearly 10 person IT department in two years. We'll be adding another soon.

Same here... ...but you learn how to cope.

[nordicfrost]

I work as a journalist. I'm 26, and starting to learn how to cope with stress and the fact that a single small slip of the keys could land my employer in a multi-million lawsuit.

The answer is; with the years, you get more confident in yourself. You know that the abaility to do it is in you, and is neing used, so it's nothing to worry about. Focus on teh task instead.

But occasionaly, I do get a bit worried. Like five minnutes ago, where the competing newspaper said (indriectly) that my story about the returing caskets with soldiers from Iraq was dead wrong (Among the pictures from thememoryhole.org were some pictures of caskets frome the columbia accident). I paniced a bit, yes, but though calmly about it, investigated my case, and discovered that the pictures I had discarded (since they wer taken during the day, while the pictures I used were in the night) from columbia had not been included in my article. And therefore it was 100% correct.

In other words: Trust your instincts.

Debug yourself

[newsdee]

Find out what's really bothering you. Is it really the stress and responsibility, or is it the money, the lack of advancement, or something else? This is very important, because if it's really the stress then it means that (e.g.) no matter how much they pay you, you would feel the same.

Once you know what really bothers you start thinking what you can do about it. Maybe a lack of advancement is because maybe you didn't finish college (I don't know you - I just know several people that work in IT in that exact situation). Maybe the stress is because you have several bosses that ask stuff for yesterday and you just need to come up with a way to prioritize everything effectively. And so on and so forth.

Changing job fields like that is risky because you don't know what awaits you. And if you don't address the core problem and make sure that changing job is the best solution, then it's going to come up again in any job that you do.

Another sort of question

[dema]

I was going to do an Ask Slashdot about this, but this topic is somewhat related. So I have a question for those of you with degrees and such that moved into careers: I may have the opportunity to take a Web Development job in another state doing PHP/MySQL work and Mac OS X support. The job description falls squarely into my interests. The problem is, I'm only 19 and finishing my frosh year in college. Would it be worth it to a take a full-time job like this and go to night classes to get an associate's degree? Does anyone here have specific experiences with the difference between earning an associate's and a bachelor's degree in the high tech field?

IT Stress and your life

[Embedded]

Quite frankly I have been lucky enough to have a job as an Embedded Firmware Engineer for 25 years. Remember the catch phrase"Intel first from the begining" I was there. Beta'd the 8051, 8086, 80186, 29000, 29020 and the list goes on.

This led to marrige breakdown of two marriges something that happened to a lot of my co-workers.

My advise is simple. Try and make your family first and advise work your family / life / health comes first.

When picking a mate try and find someone who would partner with you at work and shows a genuine interest. This might be an artist that does books as well for web sites and the graphic artist can rise in them. Anyway you get the picture.

And finally try and work towards a end that you can live where you want run your own business and the work comes to you. All you need is that high speed connect. Work when you want. Go fishing or ? when you want.

That's what 25 years tells me. And no I didn't, I wish someone had told me.

Regards John

Market maker

[Stile 65]

I've got a nice cushy IT job now, working as a security engineer for a nonprofit. About half the staff at the organization are developers or system/network engineers. It's not very stressful.

Last year and the year before, I was working as an engineer for an IT consulting company. It's great experience, but it's a lot more stressful than working in one department for one set of people on one small set of projects.

I don't know if I'm weird, greedy, or just a masochist, but I'm giving up my cushy IT job to go finish a degree (any degree!) and become a market maker (that's a term some stock/options exchanges use for a floor trader that provides liquidity). Talk about a stressful job. The nice thing is the money and the skill you gain in doing it - if I wanted to retire after 5-10 years with a mil or two and just trade a few hours a day/week for the rest of my life, I could. Plus, I hear they have LOTS of vacation time! :)

The paradox, I guess

[pantycrickets]

I used to love computers. Seriously.

I used to have a passion for everything. I used to love learning every minute detail I could about whatever it was I was interested in.

And one day, it all just stopped. I think it was when my interests became intertwined with my job. When what I was "interested in" was dictacted to me by whoever was paying me.

I have often times thought about pulling and "office space", and just ditching the whole thing, and doing something physically rewarding, but somehow, I end up stuck in that part of the movie where you're getting paid more and more for doing less and less. And like with crack cocaine, it's just hard to say no.

Keep a sense of perspective

[darylb]

Any profession has a basic problem that, at some point, it becomes a job. The bigger question is how to keep it in balance. I'd encourage you to develop hobbies that are not related to computers; I took up woodworking and woodturning. You're married (and presumably not all that long), so it's worth thinking of cultivating your marriage and spending time with your children (once you have any, if you don't have any yet). Working for charitable causes is helpful also, especially in that it helps you see the value of your own career. (There's always someone worse off than you are.)

That having been said, some jobs simply are not conducive to this. Bad hours, bad boss, tedious work, etc. I stand by my oft-stated assertion that working with a good team of people (defined as coworkers you enjoy working with) is worth a LOT of money. In that case, look around for a position that's better for your soul. But even then, it'll become work some day.

In any case, there is a bigger picture to be kept in mind. I cannot speak for other faiths, but from my vantage point as a Christian, there is a lot to be said for developing an understanding of vocation. Your abilities are not purely of your own doing. What you have been given (money, ability, etc.) should be used for a greater purpose, as the parable of the ten talents (Matthew 25:14-29) shows. When viewed with this attitude, it's easy to see the "job" as the grunt work that provides for the real, but unpaid, task of giving time, money, or ability elsewhere. Speaking from experience, the stress becomes bearable as you realize that you tolerate it for a reason.

Re:Working to your full potential

[Anonymous Coward]

For some people, the undervalued feeling can be worse then the stress. It really depends on the individual.

Being from the military, I've had a wide range of responsibility and have done some very stessful things. Many times, I've performed ~12 hours of extensive safety checks and signed the dotted line that all nuclear protection systems, alarm systems, and monitoring systems were fully tested and ready for a reactor startup. Then moving over to the position of reactor operator and performed the actual reactor startup. All of this knowing that in a few more hours, I will be heading out to sea about to leave my life and family behind for 3 straight months with little to no real world communications. I've done reactor startups at sea with a room full of people watching and monitoring my actions. I've been involved in "incedents" and had to explain to the big men what I thought happened and why I took the actions I did.

All that is fine and dandy but I made a decision to not continue that type of work. I got into "computers" because I enjoy them. 5 years later that enjoyment is now starting to wear off. Working my way up to Network Admin or whatever I am doing now is great and I enjoy the work and challenge but the *relative* lack of stress and lack of responsibility is hard compared to what I was doing and is a hit to my personal happiness. It was much worse with my previous jobs as I worked up the IT chain. I am happier overall where I am now but I know I can handle much more, that hole is something to consider.

Stress is relative to the person experiencing the stress and not always proportional to the responsibility involved. Having a job with great stress but no responsibility to go with it would be something I could not do at all. I imagine running a cash register at a busy fast food chain would be extremely stressful but the payoff of performing such work would be hard to justify.

Want less stress? Work for non-IT companies.

[Brento]

Developing tons of web sites for a web design company under customer deadlines while trying to produce a profit is stressful.

Developing and maintaining a single large web site for a large non-profit or non-IT organization is markedly less stressful.

No matter what you're doing, the stress goes up when you're dealing with external customer deadlines, pointy-headed-bosses that constantly change project scope, and the urgency to sell stuff fast or perish. Conversely, if you have the luxury of being an internal developer for a stable company whose main focus isn't actually IT, things get more predictable and stable. I'm not saying there's no stress at non-IT companies, I'm just saying it's a lot worse when you're the guy whose work pays the checks for the rest of the staff.

If you're working for an IT company, consider your next job at a non-IT company, like non-profit organizations, city government, services companies, etc. The money's usually lower, but the pace is slower, the demands are more lax, and you don't have the stress of trying to put bread on other people's plates by the merits of your own coding.

Go do some real work.

[torpor]

I've been professionally coding for 20 years, and I took a 5 month break to help my old man work in the sun, carting limestone blocks on some real estate property he was working on. Very hard, grimey, dirty, exhausting work in the harsh Aussie sunshine. A far cry from the cushy coffee/edit/compile lifestyle I'd plugged myself into in California for far too long ...

Best 5 months worth of work I've ever done. Sunshine, fresh air, daily exercise regimen disguised as 'work', and a decent wad of cash from the ol' man at the end of it.

Made me appreciate the beauty of code even more, when I finally got back to my laptop ... and now I have my dream job writing software, but I'm sure I'll put some more sweat and tears into the limestone walls on my ol' mans property again, sooner or later ... totally rejuvenating.

Dealing with stress?

[Halvard]

I've found the the people that get the most done get the most additional assignments. A Navy chief once told me "if you want something done, find the busiest person and give it to them". The point being that most everyone else is a slacker. I found myself doing most of my division's work on the submariness I was on. It shouldn't be any wonder that I wasn't very happy and had a lot of stress.

Perhaps it's ironic and perhaps not that the people that slack off seem to be the happiest. So now that I've been out of the Navy for nearly 12 years (6 in), and working 80 hour weeks on average during that time, I can tell you my current recipe for coping: twice the normal daily prescribed dosage of Prilosec (doctor says to) in an attempt to heal an esophagus damaged by stress induced esophagitis. And antacid at least once every day or two on top of it and about 20 hours less per week. In large doses, this kind of work related stress is terribly unhealthy. Other people I know that are about 40 as well in IT have developed stress related problems dealing with their stomachs and colons. I'm sure it doesn't help that I come from a largely unemotional waspy family and live with an emotional woman of Italian decent.

It's not worth it. Frequently, the fuck ups when they do something right get rewarded because it's so unexpected. The people that crank out huge volumes of work go unrecognized because it's normal.

The paradox isn't unlike what used to happen when smoking in the work place was much more common. Smokers got their hourly or every couple of hours smoke break while the non-smokers toiled away. If a non-smoker stopped for the same break, they were ordered back to work because they were slacking off. The smoker continued to be rewarded for what essential was behavior that took time away from work and (and caused health problems).

Re:Work for a University

[ZorinLynx]

As a sysadmin working for a university, I must concur. University jobs are the best!

Sure, there are times when it can get stressful, but the stress isn't CONSTANT like it is with jobs in the business world. Managers aren't constantly worrying about the bottom line, just providing the best environment possible for students and researchers.

There's also a lot more freedom to play with open-source technologies. For instance, our entire server base is Linux-based, and we even use a linux-based central virtual router, which has given us pretty much 99.999% up-time since we implemented it.

There's also a few perks, like lots of good looking women on campus all the time, being able to attend cool lectures and events (I was at the astronomy dept. star party last night, observing the solar system through a 12" reflecting telescope) and other random things.

If you can find a university IT job or research position, go for it. The atmosphere certainly beats the business world.

Army Reservist just back from war says...

[swinginSwingler]

I'm an Army Reservist who just spent six months in Baghdad as a combat photographer. I found that to be less stressful than my civilian software engineer job. (I wish that was a joke but I'm not kidding.)

Re:Have a baby.

[gorfie]

Agreed. I'm 26 and we just had our first child a month ago. Before, work was a challenge (deadlines, numerous projects, etc.). Now, I find that work is a place of relaxation, where I can focus on something and get it done. I actually asked my boss for more work. When I'm at home, I deal with a sleep-deprived wife, a fussy baby (gas), etc.. I have maybe 15 minutes to do the things I want to do (eat, read e-mail). Work is a breeze in comparison. Either way, I've always enjoyed the work. It never was really a bad kind of stress. It's just that now I know that there can be situations in life that make the stress of work pale in comparison.

Go to Africa -- and take care of your sanity

[Anonymous Coward]

I graduated from college in 91 and worked the same stressful IT job til 95. Then I said: screw this -- and decided to get out of the whole business (I was an application programmer).

I sold what I had and decided to travel for a while -- a while which ended up to be 2 years and 3 continents later.

I learned a lot during that time, and came back full circle to the IT industry with a healthier attitude. My philosophy now is: mental health, emotional health, physical health. In that order. If you get mentally broken down, the other two soon follow. And it doesn't work the other way around. You can't exercise your way to better mental health.

Also: bad stress is normally caused by stuff that is out of your control. Next time you feel stressed out, check to see why. Unreasonable deadline? Sys Admin can't get his sh*t together for your app to run? Bug in your IDE? Project Leader is a Dick?

Out-of-control stress is usually an environment thing. If it doesn't change (or you can't change it), it's often a sign to start looking for a different company.

I'm a consultant now and can honestly say that the company culture makes MUCH more difference to your daily routine than "being in the IT industry".

This will either be ignored or modded "Funny",

[bryanp]

but it's not a joke.

I took a job with the Govt. (state, not federal)

Until just over 2 months ago I had a very stressful IT job. I won't go in to the details, let's just say it was getting worse and I didn't see it getting any better. I liked the job, I liked the people, I liked my boss and coworkers, but it was just getting ridiculous.

I went to work for my State Govt. In my case I was lucky enough that I have friends who work in IT there and a guy who used to be my boss went to work there so I had a foot in the door.

Old Job: 65+ hours per week salaried (overtime? yeah right), having to let vacation disappear because I don't have time to take it and it doesn't roll over year to year, travelling all over the place and being responsible for Everything IT. Constantly worried about the next reorg.

New Job: 37.5 hours per week (with comp time for more hours worked) vacation that accumulates year over year, just being responsible for my little corner of the world with people who can cover for me. Job security is pretty solid if you don't commit any of the Big Sins (get caught with porn, do something to embarrass the higher ups, etc..) I come in, I give good value for my time and I go home. I don't get an upset stomach on Sunday afternoon thinking about Mondays anymore.

Downsides? The bureaucracy is mind-numbing.

Conversations like this:
"Why can't we just fix this?"
"Politics. You'll step on the toes of the guy who's supposed to do this."
"You mean he wouldn't be grateful we did it for him?"
"Uh, no."

Meetings. Good God they love their meetings. We needed to relocate a bunch of servers from one of the state agencies to the server room right outside my door. So we have a meeting with the affected people. Fine. Then two days before the Big Move they call another meeting "just to make sure everybody's clear." Ooookay. Things that I would have handled in the past with a flurry of emails and a phone call now take 3 face-to-face meetings with 6-8 people.

Boredom. Seriously. My old job was much more challenging and interesting. There's plenty of work for me to do, but I think I actually miss the stress to some degree.

Coworkers. Don't get me wrong here. There are a lot of hardworking intelligent people here. One of the smartest bitheads I've ever had the pleasure to know is the main guy who helped me get this job. The guy who is my boss now is very good at his job. OTOH there are people who will reinforce every bad stereotype of a Govt. employee you ever heard. And it's almost impossible to get rid of them. You just work around them. On a brighter note, I can work at what I consider to be a leisurely pace and still out-perform a lot of people.

Raises have little or nothing to do with your job performance. You won't get rich working for the govt. Fortunately the only outstanding debt I have is my mortgage and my wife's student loans when she went back to school to get her RN, so while I don't make big money I make enough to pay the bills and buy a few toys.

I'll leave you with a quote from the guy who used to be my boss to make you understand why I'm here.

"There are people here who think they're stressed out. They've got no idea what the fuck they're talking about. The only stress I have is what I put on myself. Y'know, I recently got an offer from [company we both worked for] to come back. They offered me a substantial raise over what I'm making here. I turned them down. They asked me why and I told them - I don't travel, I don't work nights, I don't work weekends, I get to see my family and the difference in the stress is indescribable. It's just not worth the money."

Re:"stress" is a waste of a word.

[torpor]

doesn't mean we should only pro-actively focus on the bits that suck, though.

don't take life in the modern world for granted, is all i'm saying. for every one 'my life sucks' blue collar digit-pusher, there are a few hundred thousand 'my life really sucks' shit-grinders.

here's a bit of advice. if you decide you can't handle it in the machine any more, go back to the jungle and help those who want in to the machine, in...

Re:Have a baby.

[futuresheep]

After a stressful day at my IT job. Nothing does a better job of making that melt away then my smiling 1 year running around the corner to greet me at the front door.

-proud dad that had to share...:-)

Re:Work for a University

[Maestro4k]

• Sure, there are times when it can get stressful, but the stress isn't CONSTANT like it is with jobs in the business world. Managers aren't constantly worrying about the bottom line, just providing the best environment possible for students and researchers.

You experience is the polar-opposite of my University work experience. I was Sysadmin of an engineering dept. of a major university. The politics were so evil I believe Satan avoided the place. I was also unfortunately stuffed into the position as an hourly employee with no overtime allowed and had to build the entire IT infrastructure (alone) for the dept. No plans had been made, I had one brand new lab of 25 computers with only the vagaries of the proposal for it. Nothing I did was fast enough, no matter how many problems I overcame and what I got accomplished someone found fault with it. After a year at it the stress caused my health to deterioate badly. Another year and I lost my job thanks to the state's flakey funding.

Losing the job was stressful at the time, and it took till last month for me to find another job in the IT field, but it also took all that time for my health to get back to where it was when I took the University job. So in the long run it was probably for the best.

My advice? Find out what you're stepping into, if you'll be building the infrastructure or the only IT person run like hell. If it's already established and you'll be part of a team it might be worth it. I do miss the perks of lectures and such. (And yeah, I enjoyed seeing all the good looking women on campus too, not tha I got to leave my building much to see them though...)

Bail out every once in a while

[Malcreant]

I know many people consider this to be professional suicide but consider bailing out every few years and do something YOU want to do for several months. Contract work sometimes has this built in.

1) It gives you something to look forward to and work towards.

2) It requires and promotes responsible financial planning.

3) It gives you a feeling of control.

4) It restricts your "suffering" to finite periods of time.

5) It recharges your creative batteries.

6) It opens new possibilities.

7) It gives you quality time to spend with your family and friends.

8) It gives you a chance to catch up on technologies YOU are interested in instead of what your job requires.

9) It gives you a chance to do positive things you will be able to reflect on when you end up in a nursing home or are disabled at a relatively early age.

It can be done even with a mortgage, a family and a slow economy. You might have to make sacrifices in your long term goals but in the long run you will probably benefit from a richer life experience.

I don't think it has hurt me in many interviews. Most people express admiration for taking such a bold step and admit they would like to do it themselves. If it has hurt a job prospect I probably wouldn't do well working for such a person.

I do not cope, it was enough

[dindi]

I am a software engineer on paper (BS), however instead of development/programming
I did network/system administration (linux/*NIX/cisco) since the late 90s for ISPs, for development firms, and lately for online casinos...

ENOUGH!

Partly because at many places I ended up doing stuff I would not wish for my enemies. System administrators end up doing the *all around crap* as soon as they discovered to be able to do more than it's in the contract .... so at one place (ISP) I ended up dealing with foreign customers, registering domains, giving phone support while in the background I was writing system maintenacne scripts .... (not a good idea)
At the other place I ended up receiving phonecalls at 5am to get to an other city to fix a crashed windows network (*nix sysadmin remember?)....

Not crying ... when you are 22-25 it's fun to do cabling in a 60x60cm vent hole covered with birdshit ... or installing microwave antennas in -20C on a rooftop ... ... or receiving a page that you MUST go to work immediately because someone kicked the plug on a server and now it does not stand up ......

ENOUGH... I said again when I started to do networking/firewalls for an online casino... and ended up fixing customer support windows machines, because after fixing everything there were no more crashes/problems on the cisco/linux department...

Crap machines, 0 ergonomics, crowded workplace cubicles, overcooled machine environment .. ...

Enough... so I rented a tiny office with a 128k line ... built a little bubble, where no boss, no marketing crew, no-one is bugging me ...
and I am running my own circus ....

for 6 months now I'm living from affiliate programs and occasionally I do stuff for people I know .....
I can run my own servers however I want them ... I can develop my lagging marketing skills... and the best of all: I have no cellphone or pager .. (well I have one for emergencies - too much *jungle-enduro-dirtbike-riding* ...

The dark side: when you do your own business, you easily end up working for a month without weekends... and that sucks, but when you build your own little empire, it makes a difference ...

ps: actually since I am "on my own" I sometimes make less money than before, sometimes I make more, but at the end I have the uplifting freedom of being able to choose between: "spending the time at the office even if you do not have anything to do" or "going home early just because not feeling so productive today"

anyway it's saturday and I came in to work ... but since I do not feel like it (because it's saturday, and because I am sleepy) probably within an hour I will be covered in mud and pulling the gas on my dirtbike"

when you are working for someone else the only thing you are missing is *choice*: to do anything without permission/guideance/supervision/orders - on your own ... it just started to rain... gotta get wet :)

How my wife and I deal with stress.

[edunbar93]

I work as the sole sysadmin for a small ISP, which means that I have a pager that can go off any time, any day. Stupid little mistakes like blown semicolons can result in thousands of customers not getting service. And then there's dealing with bonehead customers.

But I'm not stressed out.

My boss admittedly helps a lot as he doesn't ask for deadlines, just to get things done as soon as possible, and when it's done it's done. I cooperate by doing my best to make sure things happen. I naturally desire a finished product, and as such they get done in a reasonable amount of time. I also don't treat the job as if the responsibility for the operation of the universe rests solely on my shoulders. Sure, the pager might go off at 3am, and I might have to get my butt to the server room in 15 minutes flat (this is doable for me), but I don't have to act as if every second counts, and that I should shoot everyone that gets in my way. I still manage 99.9% uptime, which is mostly defined by the design of the system and leaving things be anyway.

My wife works at a Visa call center as a customer service rep. It's a place with high turnover, irritating idiots that ream you out over $5 that they rightfully owe, and high expectations on the part of management. It's also a place where management works hard to make sure they can keep employees longer than two weeks, by offering great benefits, allowing the CSRs to vent about boneheads, bonuses for hard work, and free food. They also have a very clearly defined reward structure for their top performers.

But what she does for her stress is her gym membership. It's good for her health, it's helping her lose weight, but most importantly, she can beat the crap out of the machines instead of the customers, and exercise generally helps a lot with stress anyway.

Re:Have a baby.

[bergeron76]

This is actually very productive if you can train your body to do it properly. It's called a polyphasic sleep schedule (Uberman sleep). You essentially train your body to go directly into REM sleep (the important sleep) right when you lay down. The end result is several extra productive hours a day; considering that you only sleep for about 15 minutes at a time every 6 hours.

Thomas Edison (documented) and DiVinci (rumored) used this technique.

The only drawback, however, is that you can only stay awake contiguously for about 6 hours at a time until your body FORCES you into a nap.

A ton of information about it can be found on the web and in print. Of course, don't lose any sleep over the cost of that book over at Amazon.com.

WARNING: My personal experience has been that it is EXTREMELY DIFFICULT to go back to a normal (6-8 hour a night) sleep schedule after getting into a routine such as this. I did it for quite some time with no ill effect, however, when I started working for an employer (where I couldn't get a medically approved "nap") it became quite tricky to maintain. If you work for yourself, however, it's very effective. Another thing to note, is that alcohol can seriously affect this process.