You’re not going to wake up early and finish it either.

There’s this quote by the author and motivational speaker, Dr. Eric Thomas aka ET The Hip Hop Preacher, that goes, “We do not sleep when we’re tired. We sleep when we’re done.”

I like this idea, but it is also one that I am wrestling with these days.

Nowadays, I’m trying, keyword trying, to maintain a decent work-life balance. I strive to stop working after a certain point, each day, consistently. But, sometimes by the nature of my work, like a lot of people’s, sometimes more time is required.

This morning I have a meeting, and last night I told myself that I would go home and prepare for the meeting this morning. When I got home, I fully intended to work on it, but it was also later than I had originally planned and by the time I got settled, that just didn’t happen.

So, I said, “you know what? I’ll wake up early in the morning and work on it.” Did that happen? Not really. As I’m typing this, or should I say recording this voice note, I still have some minutes to do a little bit of work, but not quite the amount of time that I had intended.

What would have been a better situation was if I had stayed at the office last night and worked on it until it was done, even if that meant that I was there later than I wanted to be.

There’s always work to be done, so we should take Dr. Thomas’s advice with a grain of salt and we need adequate amounts of sleep. Sleep is very important, probably just as important as exercising multiple times a week and eating your fruits and vegetables.

Yet and still, within reason, we do not sleep when we’re tired. We sleep when we’re done.

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