Berto

So last night, I slept like dog shit, fretting over some technical glitch that I thought of during my sleep. I was half awake / half asleep and unable to solve it in that mental state.

Finally got up at 4am, got to work, and couldn't remember what I was even worried about.

5 hours later, I just stumbled over the problem and solved it in 45 seconds. WTF. A shitty night of sleep for pretty much no reason.

This lack of sleep and overall anxiety over some business issue is sometimes known as the Entrepreneurial Terror. Do you ever get it? How do you handle it?

I am usually fine, but technical stuff gets me the most often. A pen and paper and forcing myself to wake up and relax would have probably done the trick here.

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GoldMarketing

While I often found out it difficult to fell sleep because I am thinking of different business plans and ideas in overall. I probably should leave a paper and pen(like you mentioned) near so if worthy idea comes into my mind, it would be good to write it down. Productive, isn't it?

By the way, there are talks that Mendeleev dreamed his table.

cheshire

I solve this stuff by writing it down. Unless my sites have completely fallen apart I just write it down and go to bed. I find that the act of writing it on a piece of paper labeled "TODO" lets my brain relax and not sweat it until the next day.

Also doubles as a todo list.

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Kiopa_Matt

Go back to sleep, knowing if it's an actual problem, I'll have several e-mails about it from various people when I wake up.

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dmnEPC

Always keep a pad and pen near your bed side. Half the time you won't be able to read the sleep written notes but writing it down will commit it to memory and eliminate the burden of tryin to rember

prince

my friend bought one of these

Samsung GALAXY Note - Samsung Mobile

it's pretty sweet for jotting down notes and all a bit too big though

JonnyQuest

If you have been jamming all day and your brain is wacked out then just step away and do something none business related.

I just take a walk and have my cell with me to record any solutions. I have 100% success rate so far.

Jonny

bobsoap

Same concept here, just with the phone, recording audio notes with the evernote app.

Added bonus: it's fun to hear your half-asleep audio mumble when you listen to it the next day

EricVonDoobie

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mimoza3

you also need to consider the possibility that the sleepless night helped in the fast solution you had afterwards, it might be that the major part of the processing of the issue took place at night.
Or you just struggled with it and when you let it go for a couple of hours the simple solution materialized.

craigmc

Or do like I do. Take a good hot shower. I do my best thinking in the shower.

RoughOutline

I get shitty sleep because I just think about business stuff, I find having a pen and paper next to my bed stops any anxiety, that way you'll never lose those thoughts, but sometimes you wake up and look at the paper and think "what the fuck was I thinking".

joshman1204

The obvious answer is just to rub one out and then go back to sleep

HKSEO Jonbones

I'll have something on my mind before bed, and it will manifest itself into a horrible nightmarish incarnation of it self--my mind usually interprets some small issue like a bug fix as a massive beast chasing me through the woods...

I wake up in a cold sweat, only to immediately forget what it was once my girlish screams subside.

Much Like the OP, it will come across in the next few days as a simple fix.

So yes, I do get it, and I suppose I handle it the way most would. crying under a table, sucking my thumb with a blanky.


For real though, work bleeding into your dreams sucks

Hav3n

^^This

Sometimes I'll get up and start or finish the part that is really bothering me and it lets me relax so i can go to sleep.

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mreed

Make lists. Do yoga.

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bluechinagroup

Does anyone ever get "business dreams" when they sleep?

I had a dream a week ago that I lost all my merchant accounts at once and couldn't accept orders to my website.

I've also had dreams in the past where everything was glitching up and there was just a massive amount of errors scrolling on my computer screen.

I know I am not the only one here who has dreams like this!

tatrasim

Used to have it a lot. Still do every once in a while and not just work related, but a few additional things life related. I get up, write all the thoughts down on a piece of paper, drink some beer, turn on favorite songs, lurk wf, reddit, some .ru sites, drink more beer and go back to sleep.

Yaxxx

Yeah used to happen to me all the time. But was in that 'half asleep half awake' state, but more asleep than awake lol. I got over it by making sure there's a 30m - 1hr gap between finishing work and going to sleep. Reading a not-too-intense book, browsing FB/Twitter, reading bullshit blogs etc. Did the trick

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Berto

Good suggestions above, thanks guys.

I dream in PHP when I'm in coding mode. This last one was about RDBMS normalization. Yikes.

But no business dreams. I'm really not much of a business man. I just like me my technology and niche.

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Izaya

When I go to sleep I have Entrepreneurial Terror every night, because the next day when I wake up all my sites on Google could be axed for for no fucking reason. So yes I have Entrepreneurial Terror. I really need to do something about this.

qwerty77

Happens to me all the time....I've been up since 3am....but it's been a good day, can't complain.

I've had dreams about landing pages, high PR Edu blog, list building, you name it.

JarredLv

You silly man. There's no sleeping in entrepreneurship.








Weed

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headiez247

Same here.

Most of the time I sleep really well and can fall asleep within 5 mins. I hope that never changes.

Anytime something serious is going on I won't be able to sleep much which really sucks. Being tired but not able to sleep is a real shitty feeling.

Russ86

QFT.

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SUP3RNOVA

Sometimes I wake up from bad dreams of not picking up a blitz in my flag football league. Shit is terrorizing.

As far as business goes, a lack of sleep typically comes from over-excitement about an idea and not a problem.

Also I agree with thinking while showering. Kind of weird, but I like sitting down in the shower (almost has a seat, not sitting on the floor) and thinking/relaxing for 30 minutes. It's as close to a sauna as I can get.

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Russ86

Not weird at all, I do the same shit.

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aaronklaw

My mom is my hero. She started with nothing and built up a successful veterinary practice. She finally retired this past year. She always gave me good advice, but as a business owner she told me that "business terror" really never goes away. Since you have all the pressure on you to make money, you will worry. You will fret. You will wonder if what you're doing is right. But at the end of the day, she said it was always worth it.

So even today, I freak out sometimes. I worry that I won't be successful, that I won't make it, that it will all come crashing down. But I remember its all worth it.

Anyone meditate? I've been meaning to give it a try.

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On 11/13/11, at 10:48 PM, Stefano Brown wrote:
> there is nothing more clairvoyant in this world than your customer service putting two fingers up your ass while you lie on your stomach overlooking the western himalayas from a spa

mpbiz

I'm in the same boat as you guys.

My best ideas come to me early in the morning when I'm in the shower. Sometimes I get so damn excited when I find a solution to a problem that I can't dry off fast enough.

I want to start meditating every day for 30 minutes. It's supposed to put you on another level of clarity and focus.

If you search for meditation you'll pull up some older threads with some good resources.

Your_Pal

I also deal with such tech terror problems and what I feel is its all due to the pressure and long working hours.

We should have some kind of schedule of working. Many times things are pretty easier but we can't figure them out at times but later on we can do it in a jiffy. All depends on the mindset.

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Mugshot

I used to have sleepless nights when I was doing $7k+/day. Now that my income has dropped considerably, I sleep like a baby

headiez247

Same, been doing it since I was 14

Napolean

Happens here too.

I also still get that weird feeling on and off, you know how it felt when you first quit your job after you started making enough money to work IM full time? The one where it feels like you either overslept and missed work, or feel like you need to be at work early tomorrow, but you don't actually have anywhere to go. I would best describe it as a phantom obligation.

potentialeight

I have an old phone, and I just send text messages to my email address to remind me of things that I think of at night or during the day. Then I have a filter in my email account that puts all of those messages in the same folder. It's easier than carrying around a notebook for me, but it allows me to record enough of what I'm thinking that I'll be able to come back to it later and not worry about it in the present moment.

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butcher

Finish work > weed > sleep

tspesh

Evernote

zimok

This works, completely removes the burden off of the mind.

I also do this with annoying shit I don't want to think about right now or can't do anything about at the moment.

Sleep wise.. I just read mentally taxing books before falling asleep, never had sleep problems... sometimes I fall asleep reading. I made the mistake of reading Dan Brown novels before going to bed, couldn't put it down until hours after I went to bed. lol

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tspesh

I added a whiteboard to my home office too, which has dramatically helped with "issues" and "ideas".

Write a list of to-do's, occasionally re-prioritize them and just hammer through the list.

amateursurgeon

I suffered badly from this for years. Meditation sorted it good and proper.

The key to solving it is being able to let go and make your lizard brain shut the hell up. But that's very hard to do unless you've learned to discipline your own mind. Which is where meditation helps


Sent from my HTC Desire using Tapatalk

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cardine

I have a walk-in shower and ended up buying a nice wooden shower stool so I can do exactly this. The day starts out so much nicer when you've had a nice relaxing 30 minute shower where you can think and introspect.

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chatmasta

I've had a dream about code before and I wanted to kill myself when I woke up. I felt so overwhelmed.

Being an entrepreneur or a programmer does not need to -- and shouldn't -- define who you are. It should just be something you do. If you're spending 24 hours of the day thinking about code and business and fretting over bugs when you go to sleep, you need to take a step back. Remove yourself a little. There is such thing as being in too deep and missing the forest for the trees.

As both an entrepreneur and a programmer, you need to find a balance. Your duties as an entrepreneur require you to step back and take more of a management role in your business, providing it overall direction and not worrying about the gritty details. But your duties as a programmer require you to dive deep into the gritty details of your business and work out even the smallest bugs.

How do you reconcile these differences? How do you balance these two roles? It's probably the toughest thing to do as a one man business, but if you can figure it out you will be successful. Don't let the programmer inside of you get in the way of the entrepreneur, and don't let the entrepreneur inside of you get in the way of the programmer.

But don't forget your third persona....yourself. At the end of the day, you are more than just a programmer or entrepreneur. You are yourself, not your business. So when you are done working for the day, shut everything off and relax, because you're going to need to be at your best tomorrow.

[/motivational_post]

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aproxaday

This is so true. Us programmers/entrepreneur has a mixed agenda haha.

Berto

This thread got a lot more awesome than I expected it to be. Thanks all.

I do my best thinking in the water too - pool or shower (not ocean, when out there on a good day, I think about NOTHING but the action).

Last night the lady came over and provided good distraction. We slept like rocks. That's another solution nobody's mentioned

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ShadowCaster

lol, I once blacked out in a party and apparently had a nightmare, because the next morning guys told me that I was mumbling "They are speaking in Python, they are speaking in Python!"
Sadly I can't remember a thing

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Napolean

That would be pretty scary IRL. Not sure how the tabbing would work though.

dchuk

after every sentence people would leap a few feet forward

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rockstar45177

Be sure to never confide that in any of the women you fuck as they will be sure to use it against you later on bro

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Berto

Hm? Care to explain? Of all the best relationships I've had, it's been with women who LOVE my ambition/drive combined with geekiness.

They like the fact that I got something bigger going on than simply partying, working for someone else, or being a volleyball bum out here.

I got no problem saying "I was up at 4am, gonna need a nap and a backrub"

Doesn't happen often enough for it to be a huge problem, but when it does, I TRY to live by a 20 minute rule - if I'm not sleeping, no laying around in bed for more than 20 minutes. Get up and do something.

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okuma31

heavy ass squats and oatz baby. i havent found anything else in the world that puts my mind to rest other than getting under some heavy ass weights and leaving all your worries in the gym.

HiGhPeR

I use a pen and paper as well.. I have notes scattered all over my desk, but it helps me get shit done. There are always so many things on my mind.. I HAVE to write it down, or I'll forget about it and move onto something else.

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