Sleep is treated as an asset, not a luxury. When you’re depleted, you lose discernment: you say yes too quickly, choose the easy over the important, and mistake urgency for significance.
The chapter reframes rest as a productivity multiplier. Sleep supports judgment, emotional control, and the capacity to do deep, demanding work without collapsing into distraction. If essentialism is about making the right choices, then sleep protects the machinery that makes those choices possible.
It also attacks the cultural badge of exhaustion. Being tired is not proof of dedication; it is often proof of poor selection and weak boundaries.
The essentialist protects sleep the way an investor protects principal. You can’t spend your core capacity all day and then expect wisdom at night.