SOCIAL JET LAG: THE SILENT PRODUCTIVITY KILLER
As a general rule, to avoid social jet lag, aim for at least seven hours of sleep within your normal sleep-wake window.
While you may think that one way to combat social jet lag is by catching up on sleep, it may be a stopgap fix, but it certainly does not cure the problem. Instead, you must make changes in your daily routine so that your circadian rhythm, your internal clock that keeps your sleep-wake cycle normalized, is aligned and your sleep deprivation low. You can do this by going to bed and waking up at the same time every day. If the temptation to sleep in on the days you don’t have to be at the office takes over, only allow yourself to sleep in an extra hour. This ensures that your circadian clock isn’t thrown off too much. But, if you can resist the urge to sleep in and keep your sleep-wake schedule on track, an afternoon nap is a quick way to catch some z’s. Because our chronotypes are mostly set in stone, it’s easier to work with them than against them. But, if you must shift it, do so gradually to allow your body time to catch up. And, most importantly, prioritize sleep. Without it, showing up at work on Monday morning with social jet lag can make it extremely difficult to get going.
Maybe it’s not a case of the Mondays after all. Social jet lag, the discrepancy between sleep on a workday and sleep on a weekend, is a real thing! Your chronotype — your body’s natural sleep and wake preferences — is deeply impacted when you switch up your schedule on a whim. The hustle and bustle of your busy weekends may be making your job at the office more difficult or even compromising the accuracy of your work. What can be done?
Update Your Estate Plan After Experiencing Grief
For many, an estate plan features a number of players. Beneficiaries and those with designations through health care and financial directives can range from spouses and children to neighbors and friends. But when someone named in your estate plan dies before you, complications can arise, particularly if your estate plan fails to address these situations. There are a few routes that can prevent this type of scenario from happening to you, and many estate plans list alternates for different scenarios. For example, you may have named your eldest child as your Attorney-in-Fact under your Durable Power of Attorney for Healthcare, but you can also list your youngest child as an alternate Attorney-in-Fact in the event that your eldest child is unable or unwilling to serve. However, if you do not designate backups or “contingent” beneficiaries and the person you name has passed, your estate plan will get more complex. Let’s say, for instance, you executed a Durable Power of Attorney for Healthcare naming your oldest child as your Attorney-in-Fact, but you failed to name a backup. If your oldest child predeceases you and you fail to update your estate plan after his or her death, you could end up in a scenario without someone present to make health care decisions for you in the event that you become unable to make those decisions for yourself.
$100,000.00 to your only grandchild. If your grandchild sadly predeceases you and you don’t update your estate plan before you die or have provisions in your Will that state what happens to that $100,000.00 if your grandchild predeceases you, that $100,000.00 may end up being distributed to someone you do not want to take. Our estate planning team at Douglass & Runger understand that who you name in your estate plan may need to change over time. We incorporate provisions in your estate planning documents that protect your assets and your loved ones from these complex scenarios. If you need to update your estate planning documents, please contact us. You can also learn more about our estate planning offerings at DouglassRunger.com.
This same idea could protect you should a beneficiary in your Will or Living Trust predecease you. In the context of a Will, let’s say you choose to leave
2 • DouglassRunger.com
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