“How to suck at your job so much that you can’t get your job done in less than 20 hours a day”…

… or the truth behind titles such as “How to function on only 4 hours of sleep”

The religion of productivity has its limits and one dubious claim is that people should be proud to sleep less. It’s somehow supposed to demonstrate that they are more productive than most. Marissa Mayer likes to repeat that she sleeps 4 to 6 hours a day. And as this one interviewed by Business Insider many young CEOs take her and her peers as an example, and like to repeat that they don’t need much sleep.

But being on a 4h sleep regimen does not come easily.

Here are the steps described by this bright, young and dynamic CEO:

• cut on TV (more precisely, cut on family TV)
• adopt a specific diet (no carbs)
• restrain from meetings (who would want a meeting with sleep-deprived boss anyway)
• respect a strict sleep schedule
• do what you like when you’re sleepy and less productive
• take naps (duh)

So basically, in order to sleep less, you need to train like an athlete, cut on family time, avoid anything personal, avoid human contact and keep organized like a machine.

And in the end it does not even work as you’ll need to sleep during the day to compensate.

A new study detailed in the French HBR denounces this undersleeping trend as a fad and a lie. Numbers from the WHO show that French people usually sleep 7h05 a day, and 8h11 on week-ends. By contrast, French people with leadership positions usually sleep 6h42 a day, 7h49 on week-ends.

First of all, it shows that the difference is not that much between oversleeping slacker employees and their undersleeping leaders. And second, it shows how wrong is the idea that sleeping 4 to 6h a day would be a good habit.

Indeed, different people need different sleep durations.

And, as explained by Wendy Troxel, even the same individual can need different sleep lengths at different time in his life:

At the end of the day, being productive means being able to do what you’re supposed to do as quickly and as perfectly as possible. What’s the use to train yourself through college or experience if it does not get you better than anyone else. And if you think the job of a CEO is to pile up stuff to do, I don’t see how that’s compatible with bringing up vision and leadership.

Truth to be told, sleeping more should be a proof of how good you are, not the opposite.