The Tiny Thing that Could be Ruining Your Productivity at Work

We all know that a bad night's sleep is a recipe for disaster when it comes to a being productive at work, but according to a new study, losing out on just over a quarter of an hour of kip is enough to ruin your day.

A new study from researchers at the University of South Florida found that missing 16 minutes of sleep negatively impacts your productivity and stress levels the next day.

They surveyed 130 healthy employees working in Information Technology, tracking both their sleep and their performance at work. Participants reports that when they slept just 16 minutes less than 'normal', they experienced issues focusing the next day, which in turn raised their stress levels and made them less productive.

Researchers also found that workers struggled with being easily distracted after a poor night's sleep (no surprise there, then), and interestingly, having worse judgement. The study noted that the consequences of losing sleep weren't apparent at the weekend, when participants didn't have work.

Lead author Soomi Lee said of the findings:

"These cyclical associations reflect that employees’ sleep is vulnerable to daily cognitive stress and also a contributor to cognitively stressful experiences. Findings from this study provide empirical evidence for why workplaces need to make more efforts to promote their employees’ sleep. Good sleepers may be better performers at work due to greater ability to stay focused an on-task with fewer errors and interpersonal conflicts."

Get that kip in if you want to be productive, people.