How do you guys avoid making mistakes when working on <4 hrs of sleep?

I can’t stop making careless attention to detail mistakes whenever I get less than 4 hours of sleep, and I think my boss is starting to get fed up with it. Today, I made my biggest fuck up and it resulted in in us looking bad in front of a client. It could have easily been avoided when I’m not functioning at less than 50% cognitive capacity.


Anyone have any tips or hacks? Or should I just give up on studying for the CFA during after work hours in order to maintain consistent quality in my work? I only started studying for it bc my team is old school and pressured me into it. But at this point I’d rather just let them give me shit about not having my CFA from time to time instead of making major fuck ups on the job.


I’ve tried taking vyvanse and L-theanine on my sleep-deprived days. But it doesn’t actually help prevent me from making careless mistakes, it just gives me energy to stay awake and mood-wise makes the tasks seem more enjoyable to me if that makes sense. This just doesn’t seem sustainable, I don’t know how people who work worse hours than me in IB do it.

6 Comments
 

This sounds like a continuous, recurring thing. Is there a way you could be managing yourself better?

I don't think you should be always running on 4H sleep. And when you must work all night for that deliverable, why is it going straight to clients without anyone else seeing it.

On the CFA, sure you can keep doing it but it's just about managing. It might take a bit longer and you might need to find times when your not being slammed.

 

What is your process for double checking your work? Do you print it out and go over it by hand or at least print to PDF so it “looks” different? If they’re number mistakes, are you checking to make sure the calculations at least make sense and aren’t giving absurd outputs? 

It’s normal to make mistakes. The issue isn’t making them, it’s not catching them before the work is turned in. I also don’t know how no one else caught them before they were presented to the client either, but that’s more of a firm issue. 

And no I would never let a certification interfere with my job or make me constantly run on 4 hours of sleep. What good is a CFA if your health fails AND you get fired? 

Commercial Real Estate Developer
 

For this particular mistake, the other associate that was supposed to check my work also missed it lol, so it was bad luck. Like she was literally looking over my shoulder too. But the blame mostly gets put on me because I’m the one running with it and ahe’s just helping.

 

How could we know if it is worth it for you to study for the CFA exams? You haven't stated what your job is or what you aspire to be. 

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 

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