Pros and Cons of Working Through the Night

Working late is NOT weird or strange but it definitely has its pros and cons. I am writing this article now for two reasons. One, to make myself feel better about sitting beside my computer with a bowl of popcorn and my endless to-do list and two, to help you realize that there are some good sides and bad sides to working through the night.
Pros
1. Absolutely NO interruptions. Nothing from callers, clients (well, most of them anyway!), friends, family, spouses, children, pets, telemarketers, door-to-door solicitors, utility “lock-in-your-current-price-before-it-sky-rockets” guys… No one. Pure peace and quiet.
2. The ability to sleep once pure and utter exhaustion kicks in from having not slept the day before and having the caffeine buzz wear off. If you’re anything like me, you have difficulty sleeping at night because the sheep you’re supposed to be counting have turned into the unchecked items from your tasks list in Outlook. Scary.
3. Websites load faster. Seriously – they do. Think about it, there is hardly anyone on the web at 2 AM… Okay, so there are still millions and millions of people but if you’ve ever experienced a long delay in getting your blog entries posted during peak business hours, you’ll see that it is drastically reduced during off-hours. Undivided internet attention. I love it.
Cons
1. You miss out on the “social hours” because you’re sleeping off your late night work affair. You must remember that balance really is important and that working through the night will cause you to be asleep during the hours that other people are awake. This is especially difficult if you have children to look after!
2. Response rates are much slower. Have you ever tried getting pricing info that is not listed on a website at 3 AM? I have and nope, you can’t get it. Why? The company is closed because their employees are asleep! The downside to working late is nobody else is open (which is also a pro but from a different perspective.)
3. Possible chance of burning out. When you don’t sleep during the night and then go to sleep around 8-9 AM, you won’t get the full recommended eight hours of sleep. Why? Your body wants to get up and use up the daylight hours thus not allowing you to sleep for very long. By going to bed at a decent hour, you can get up early and use up the early morning hours instead of the late night hours.
Whenever you decide to log in those extra hours, just remember one thing: make sure your quality of work isn’t suffering as a result of your schedule. It is very easy to think that everything you do is pure genius at 3 AM because of the lack of energy, focus and clarity. Be sure to proofread and double check what you do that late because you never know how many times you may doze off and slip in an extra letter or two here and there.
– About the Author –
Erin Blaskie is the founder and president of Business Services, ETC (http://www.bsetc.ca) an administrative support company located within Canada. Erin works one on one with clients to assist them in meeting their goals by taking over the “small stuff.”
– For More Information –
Erin also has a free e-zine called “101 Things That I Discovered as a VA”, which will help you with all areas of your business, that you can subscribe to at http://www.bsetc.ca as well as a blog with the same title where she shares even more tips.
If you want to know more please contact Erin at erin.blaskie@bsetc.ca.
– Copyright Information –
All rights reserved. This publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system or otherwise, unless this notification of copyright is retained.