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When you nestle into your warm bed, shut your eyes, and slowly drift off to sleep … do you think your mind and body are shutting down for the night?

Not the case, my friend. While our bodies might remain (relatively) still when we sleep, our minds are hard at work. During these critical hours, a lot of that processing, restoration, and strengthening that’s so important to our bodies and minds is taking place.

It’s crystal clear that we need sleep to live, period. Not only is getting fewer than six hours of sleep on a regular basis bad for your productivity, but it also affects your short- and long-term ability to think clearly. In some cases, sleep deprivation has even been linked to health effects like depression, anxiety, obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s, and cancer.

Woof. To help us understand how important sleep is, some scientists have compared sleeping to eating. Sleepiness, like hunger, is a natural, protective mechanism, they say. It’s a powerful message your body sends you to signal that bad things will happen if you don’t hit the hay.

Why Do We Need Sleep?

How come our physical and mental health relies so heavily on those six to eight hours of shut-eye?

While scientists know hunger fulfills our need for nutrients, growth, and tissue repair, it turns out they still don’t know for sure which needs sleep fulfills. To this day, sleep remains one of the great, unsolved mysteries of science.

But that doesn’t mean those scientists don’t have theories. In fact, there are some really interesting ideas out there for the function(s) that sleeping serves us — some more plausible than others. To get a better understanding of why sleep is so important, let’s dig in to the four most popular theories of why we need sleep.

4 Theories Behind Our Need for Sleep

1) The Inactivity Theory

Inactivity theory, also called “adaptive theory” or “evolutionary theory,” is one of the first theories developed to explain our need for sleep — and it’s also not very widely accepted.

The theory states that there is actually an evolutionary advantage to sleep. Because we’re particularly vulnerable when it’s dark out at night, we adapted the need for sleep as survival mechanism to keep us inactive during those hours of vulnerability.

In other words, animals that were able to stay inactive during these periods of vulnerability had an evolutionary advantage over other animals that stayed active because they were less likely to get killed by predators or to get into accidents while moving around or doing activities in the dark. Sleep was an asset, and through natural selection, we evolved and developed what we now recognize as a need for sleep.

Of course, there are plenty of counterarguments to this theory. For example, isn’t is safer to stay conscious — even if you’re lying awake in the dark — so you can react to a potential threat?

Some scientists pair this first theory with the next one on energy conservation.

2) The Energy Conservation Theory

This is one of the most commonly cited theories on sleep function. As you might guess, this one is all about conserving energy — and it’s especially relevant in times when food is scarce.

The theory asks us to compare two animals:

1. Animal #1 is active for 24 hours per day.
2. Animal #2 is active for 16 hours per day and asleep for eight.

The theory states that Animal #2 is more likely to survive during times when food is scarce because they need (and use) less of it for energy. In other words, Animals #2 is trading time for energy: They spend less time awake, and use less energy as a result.

It might be harder for us to imagine this now, living in societies where food sources tend to be readily available. But keep in mind that, relatively speaking, it hasn’t been very long since humans were living in a constant state of food scarcity. In those situations, the competition for — and use of — our energy resources was (and still is) one of the strongest factors in natural selection. It’s a similar concept to hibernation, actually, where animals are inactive and have reduced metabolic rates.

Of course, this theory relies on energy metabolism being a lot lower when we’re asleep than when we’re awake — including when we’re awake, but remaining quiet and still. So, is that true?

According to research out of Harvard Medical School, it is true to some degree: Energy metabolism is reduced during sleep by as much as 10% in humans, and even more in other species. But some researchers argue that the amount of energy we conserve during sleep is relatively small compared to when we’re awake. In that case, it’d be “inconsequential for energy conservation to be considered sleep’s primary function.”

Other research that might contradict this theory shows that brain energy metabolism increases in REM sleep.

3) The Restorative Theories

Alright, so what about restoration and rejuvenation? This theory is one of the most popular, and it actually has several versions. The commonality in these theories is this: Sleep provides an opportunity for our body to repair itself, and to restore things that we spent or lost while we were awake.

What “things” would your body need to restore? This is where the theories branch off into sub-theories. Some have to do with physical restoration, others with mental restoration.

Physical Restoration

The list includes immune function restoration, muscle growth, tissue repair, protein synthesis, and hormone release. When it comes to immune function, for example, our bodies need to maintain a very careful balance of cells and immune responses in order to stay healthy. Studies like this one showed that sleep-deprived animals eventually lost all of their immune function — and died within just a few weeks.

Other studies have found that sleep is crucial for our cellular, organic, and systemic functions. For example, sleep deprivation makes our bodies synthesize protein slower, which can cause us to lose muscle and hinder muscle recovery after damage from exercise, injuries, and so on.

Restoration of Cognitive Function

You may have heard that sleep is good for cognition and memory. Specifically, sleep does two things to help us retain memory:

a) It helps us make new memories by removing us from the constant disruptions we experience when we’re awake. When we’re awake, new situations and stimuli can prevent new memories from consolidating in our minds.

b) It helps us consolidate and prioritize memories according to how important they are to us, and our expectations for remembering them. One study from a German research lab found that sleep helps our memory formation most if you know you will need the information later — like when studying notecards for a test.

This version of the restorative theories is similar to the fourth theory we’ll go over in a second on brain plasticity.

Restoration of Adenosine

Another one of the restorative theories is centered around a brain chemical called adenosine. Our cells release adenosine on a regular basis just by functioning normally. But, unlike chemicals like carbon dioxide, our bodies don’t just get rid of adenosine. Instead, it builds up in our brains throughout the day — and might even contribute to our increasing fatigue as the day goes on.

4) The Brain Plasticity Theory

Finally, we have the brain plasticity theory — one of the more recent theories on why we sleep. “Brain plasticity” is the brain’s ability to change its own structure and organization in response to changes within our bodies and in our environment — and it plays a big role in our ability to learn new information and skills.

Where does the need for sleep fit in? The theory suggests those all-important structural and organizational changes in our brain take place when we’re asleep. Without adequate sleep, we have a hard time learning something new because our brain doesn’t have the opportunity to review and “absorb” the new information.

This is especially true when we’re young. According to research from Harvard Medical School, sleep plays a crucial role in the brain development of infants and young children. You know how infants spend 13–14 hours per day sleeping? If the theory is correct, that’s time spent processing information and creating critical connections in their brains.

Even in adults, lack of sleep can have significant negative affects on the ability to learn, perform tasks, and be productive. For example, one study found that people who went four days with almost no sleep saw their working memory reduced by almost 40% on average.

What Does This Mean for You?

Sleep affects your physical well-being and your ability to learn new skills, absorb new information, and be the productive, happy, functioning person I’m guessing you’d like to be. For most adults, that means getting seven to eight solid hours of sleep every night.

Here’s the good news: If you find yourself in sleep debt, you can make it up. One University of Chicago study followed a group of student volunteers who slept only four hours per night for six consecutive days. All of the changes they experienced during that period of sleep deprivation — from high blood pressure to fewer antibodies to insulin resistance — were reversed when the students made up the hours of sleep they’d lost.

(You can learn more about the science of sleep and the five stages of our sleep cycles by reading this blog post.)

Do you get enough sleep? How does your sleep schedule affect you? Share your experience with us in the comments.

Attending an international conference isn’t always as glamorous as it sounds. As any seasoned delegate will tell you, it’s not all rubbing shoulders with famous speakers, impressing online connections in real life and closing big business deals over gourmet dinners and fancy cocktails. In fact, a long day at a conference, spent rushing from talk to talk, gulping down fast food and desperately trying to remember which business card matches which new face, can leave you feeling a bit like a deflated balloon.

Luckily for you, I’ve attended my fair share of international conferences and have picked up a few handy survival tips along the way. Here’s how to make it through your next conference intact:

1) Practice Your Elevator Pitch

Whether you’re just chatting to someone in a coffee queue, introducing yourself at a make-or-break meeting, or shouting into a potential customer’s ear at a beer-soaked after party, it’s helpful to have your elevator pitch prepped and ready to go. Vague and generic elevator pitches aren’t memorable, so make sure you communicate your unique selling point right off the bat. What sets your business apart from your competitors? Make that the focus of your elevator pitch.

2) Wear Comfortable Shoes

Part of your game plan is dressing for success, I get it. But keep in mind that conferences typically involve long hours of standing and walking. Nothing throws you off your game quite like aching, blistered feet.

3) Pick Your Top Talks and Workshops

Chances are, you can’t attend every single talk at the conference. Study the agenda beforehand and work out which speakers you absolutely can’t miss. Then, check the venues and make sure you know how you’re going to get from one to the other; conferences centres can be much bigger than you imagine and some events might take place off-site.

4) Treat Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner as Meeting Slots

Snagging one-on-one meetings with key prospects and customers should be one of your main conference goals. When you’re contending with a jam-packed agenda, however, finding a time to meet that suits you both can be tricky. Take advantage of the breaks scheduled for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and coffee when booking meetings.

5) Record Useful Details on Business Cards

There’s no point collecting business cards if you can’t remember the first thing about any of your new connections. Keep a pen handy and jot down key conversation points on each business card you receive. This could be something you have in common – maybe you’re both avid fishermen or you have children of a similar age – or a business-related point that will help you hone in on how you can work together in the future. Doing this will not only help jog your memory when you’re sorting through the pile back home, it’ll also help you personalise your follow ups.

6) Stay Well Hydrated and Well Fed

At the risk of sounding like your mom, don’t skip meals and make sure you drink enough water. Keep your energy levels up by eating properly and keeping a bottle of water on hand. If you’re someone who needs to snack regularly or if you have any special allergies, it’s a good idea to stash some snacks in your briefcase or backpack – like a few nuts, a protein bar or an apple – to avoid plummeting sugar levels and a catastrophic loss of your sense of humour.

7) Make Time for Play, as well as Business

Tequila isn’t just a social lubricator, it’s a useful business lubricator too. Conference parties are often where the best connections are made, so don’t spend the evenings hiding away in your hotel room. That said, beware of going too big: attending a business conference with a stinking hangover is a cruel and unusual punishment indeed.

8) Pick your Conferences Wisely

To get real ROI from business conferences, you need to make valuable connections with new prospects, nurture relationships with leads and existing customers, and bring home practical learnings that you can actually use in your own business. This means you need to pick which conferences you’ll be attending based on not just the keynote speakers, but also on who else is going to be attending.

We’ve all been there: heads down on an important project, cranking away, and then  woosh. You fly into a meeting. And then woosh, you fly into another meeting. Your stomach grumbles. It’s lunchtime. You decide to work at your desk so you can keep cranking on that project. But then ping, there’s a message from your manager. You have to drop everything and help put out a (digital) fire. By the time you get back to your important project, it’s 6 p.m. and everyone is packing up to go home.

What the heck happened to the day?!?

If you believe in the supernatural, you might be tempted to think that a Bermuda Triangle-esque time warp has opened up in your office, and you’ve been unwillingly sucked into its swirling vortex of temporal confusion.

But for a more scientific answer to the question, the team at Scoro has got you covered. Their infographic highlights some of the workday’s biggest time-wasters, along with suggestions for how you can avoid them.

Have any tips for how you can use your time more productively at work? Leave a comment below.

This post originally appeared on HubSpot’s Sales Blog. To read more content like this, subscribe to Sales.

Successful founders are productive. I’m not sure if they’re successful because they’re productive, or if they forced themselves to become productive because they wanted to be successful. It’s very much a chicken-or-egg question.

But the fact remains that even though successful founders only have 24 hours in a day, they can build quadricorns while the rest of us are doing … well, who knows what?

(I’m still mourning the loss of scheduled naptime.)

Dharmesh Shah is an example of one of those founders. Since he co-founded HubSpot almost 10 years ago, the business has grown from $0 to $181M in annual revenue. We employ over 1,100 employees and serve over 18,000 customers.

Not too shabby.

So last week, I asked him exactly how he approaches his work. Below are the three productivity tips he uses to get stuff done.

3 Productivity Lessons From Dharmesh Shah

1) Sleep 30 minutes more a day.

Sleep Expert Laura Vanderkam says that people regularly report working more hours than they actually do. We’re used to glorifying professionals who work a lot. That’s why people say, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” right?

If you subscribe to this school of thought, I urge you to rethink it. The first thing Dharmesh told me was that an extra half-hour of sleep is the “highest ROI” that entrepreneurs and professionals will ever get — period.

We all know from common sense and personal experience that when we’re tired, we can’t perform at our best. But science backs this tip up, too.

In a 1997 study, Drew Dawson and Kathryn Reid found that sleep deprivation has roughly the same effect on our performance as alcohol intoxication. If you’re sleeping fewer than six hours a night, you’ll experience the same effects as if you had a blood alcohol concentration of 0.08 — the legal limit for driving.

You’ll never be at your best if you’re tired and distracted, so avoid overworking. It’ll pay off in the long run.

2) Work on one task at a time.

“Don’t kid yourself that you can multitask — you can’t,” Dharmesh said. “Task switching is cognitively expensive.”

The human brain is only wired to focus on one thing at a time. So trying to complete multiple tasks simultaneously is not only ineffective, it’s actually bad for you. Stanford researchers actually found that when adult participants in their study attempted to multitask, their IQ scores lowered to the average range you’d find in an eight-year-old child. 

Instead, focus on one thing at a time — especially when it’s something you have to get right.

“Give yourself contiguous time to work on the important things,” Dharmesh suggests.

It can be tempting to jump back and forth between projects — as you see new emails and notifications come in, your instinct is to respond immediately. But the more you’re switching between tasks, the longer it will take you to complete everything. Shut off channels you’re not using at the moment to minimize distraction.

3) Organize your calendar in blocks.

This one’s actually two tips in one: Organize your day in chunks of tasks, and plan your days ahead of time.

“I block out time on my calendar to do the things I need to do,” Dharmesh said. “Otherwise, my day gets fragmented. Fragmented days lead to fragmented weeks — not good.”

Depending on your job, planning can only take you so far. Surprises and shifts might just be part of your job. But if you can enter each day with a sense of your priorities, it’ll be easier for you to shift things around when last-minute changes do come up.

Since you’re guaranteed to face interruptions in your day, make sure the time you can plan for is structured strategically. It takes an average of 25 minutes to return to full productivity after a distraction, so minimize your mental load by knocking out similar types of tasks one after the other.

What are your best productivity tips? Let us know in the comments below.

This post originally appeared on HubSpot’s Agency Post. To read more content like this, subscribe to Agency Post.

People remember what they see more than what they read. This is because we’re able to comprehend visual information much more quickly than text.

This means creating highly engaging and attractive images is essential for social media success — but it’s even more important when you are running paid campaigns. Every dollar counts.

Part of creating high-performing ads is making sure your images are the correct dimensions. With varying photo and image size requirements for each social media platform and fairly frequent updates of these sizes, it can be difficult to keep up-to-date. 

To ensure you know the correct image dimensions for advertising on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube, the folks at Dot Com Infoway created the infographic below. The dimensions include both desktop and mobile image sizes. You’re going to want to bookmark this as a reference for when you start your next campaign.

The use of Growth-Driven Design (GDD) is an effective, dynamic marketing approach. Unlike traditional web design, which can be hypothesis-based and largely static, GDD is dynamic, evolutionary, and implemented based on real feedback and user data. As such, it is particularly valuable for ecommerce retailers’ websites.

Why?

In order for an ecommerce site to be successful, it needs to contain consistently fresh, relevant, interesting and educational content that speaks directly to its customers and site visitors. Implementing Growth-Driven Design processes is an effective way to ensure that this always happens.

Here are the basic steps to implementing GDD to your ecommerce website:

Plan Ahead

Always start by setting S.M.A.R.T goals, developing complete buyer personas, and doing quantitative and qualitative research. Taking the time to properly lay down this groundwork will give you a realistic sense of what steps you need to take to create a top converting ecommerce site, and exactly who you need to be speaking to in order to increase traffic, drive conversions and ensure your success in the future.

How?

First, setting goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound (S.M.A.R.T) will ensure that you avoid generalizations and accurately measure your progress, keeping yourself accountable every step of the way.

Instead of saying that your goal is, “to generate more revenue”, set a more targeted goal like, “to increase product conversions by 10% (from 50 per month to 55 per month) in the next 6 months.” That way, you’ll be able to keep track of exactly how you are progressing and what else you need to do to reach your goal in a timely manner.  

Similarly, doing the research and creating fully-developed buyer personas will allow you to accurately segment and target all of your marketing efforts, making sure that they reach the right people at the right time. Ultimately, your goal as an online retailer is to attract, convert, close and delight your site visitors, and in order to create content that accomplishes this task you need to know who they are, what motivates them to buy and what will get them interested. 

Finally, getting feedback from your current customers and analyzing your current year-over-year metrics in terms of traffic, transactions, and conversion rates will guide your strategy moving forward and help you really keep track of your improvement over time.

You’ll know where you’re at, who you are selling to, and where to focus your efforts in the future. With this information, you can start developing an informed and effective site, coming up with a global and page strategy that works to effectively attract, convert, close and delight your potential customers.

Work to Create Your Site

Before you go headfirst into putting together a full website, GDD strategy suggests that you create a wishlist and Launch Pad site, always keeping the information that you discovered in the “Plan Ahead” section in mind. To create your wishlist, sit down with your team and write down all of your “a-ha” creative ideas and everything that will set you apart from your competition.

If you were creating your dream ecommerce site, how would it look and what would it include? Maybe every product detail page would include a 360° image or the site would be fully integrated with all social media accounts. Clearly not all of these ideas will be implemented, but putting together this wishlist will help you develop your vision and a clear idea of what your “best website” would look like.

Once you have your wishlist, do a 80/20 analysis on it, finding the top 20% of ideas that will have 80% of the impact. What are the “must-have” items on this list – what do your buyer personas want to see, and what will effectively turn them into delighted customers?

This would include features like a user-friendly shopping cart and a well-designed product page. When considering these “must-haves,” it’s helpful to think of your website as a store and try to make it as inviting as possible. What are the basics of any good store?

• Store entrance = homepage 
• Aisles = category pages
• Shelves = attributes you sort products by
• Products = product detail page

At the very least, work to make sure that your top 80/20 list ideas work to optimize these essential ecommerce pages. Once you have this list whittled down, put together your Launch Pad website with these top must-have features. Think of the Launch Pad website as a starter site. It won’t be perfect, but it should be launched quickly so that you can start generating valuable feedback and revenue.

With a starter site up, you can quickly start analyzing data and seeing what pages are working, what products your site visitors are interested in, and where you could be losing opportunities for conversions. Are your buyer personas accurate? Are you on a path to reach your S.M.A.R.T goals? Here is where you find out. 

Analyze and Develop

As you move forward, continue to analyze, develop and revise your site. Always keep track of your metrics, checking the effectiveness of your strategies and make any necessary changes along the way.

Are site visitors bouncing on your homepage? What items on your product page are they most interested in? Are there certain blog post topics that get the most views?

Staying on top of this kind of information and maintaining this dynamic relationship with your data, progress, and customers ensures that your marketing efforts are effective and that you maintain an up-to-date, successful site over time.

As you analyze this data and continue to draw conclusions, make sure that you also publish all of your important findings in a central location that everyone in your company can see and take advantage of. This will not only provide a roadmap for future site changes and decisions, but also ensure that every branch of your team – development, sales, marketing, etc. – has all of the information that they need to effect positive change on your ecommerce site.  

Say, for example, that the data shows that products with fun, conversational descriptions have the highest conversion rates. If this information is available for all to see, then the team can effectively and cohesively implement that language in email campaigns and throughout the site. The point, then, is to transfer all of the most impactful information that has been gathered to other parts of your site in order to see a marked positive change. 

Looking at it more generally, then, applying GDD in this way and following these steps gives ecommerce retailers the edge that they need to create a successful site.

How?

It provides them with all of the tools that they need to take full control of their websites and its performance, ultimately creating the most high-converting, successful online presence possible.

With traditional web design, this kind of precision and control is extremely difficult to achieve: without using live data and feedback to speak to their buyer personas and provide relevant content, online retailers just can’t know what changes will be most effective and well-received long-term. 

So, while GDD may seem like a time-consuming and complex process, its dynamic, data-driven approach ultimately makes it one the best, most effective marketing strategies out there.