The research on time wasting at work is sparse, but Dutch colleagues from the University of Amsterdam, Wendelien van Eerde and Merlijn Venus, recently made a new contribution. They hypothesized that high sleep quality (but not quantity) provides energy and necessary self-regulatory abilities so that we can work effectively. Low sleep quality would result in time wasting.

The interesting innovation in their study is that they next asked, is this true for everyone? Isn’t it possible that more “hardy” individuals might be able to push through sleep deprivation (low sleep quality the night before) and stay on task? To answer this question, they explored how self-control might be a resilience resource in the face of poor sleep quality.

They expected to see that there was an overall relation between low sleep quality and time wasting the next day, but that this would be moderated by self-control. They argued that when self-control was high, there would be less procrastination, even with low sleep quality.