Just hit my 11th consecutive 95+ hour week prepping a mega-deal. While I knew IB hours were brutal, the physical toll (chronic back pain, 3am panic attacks) caught me off guard. I’ve heard whispers about senior bankers using tactical rest protocols and ‘strategic unresponsiveness’ to survive. Does anyone have concrete examples of frameworks that actually work for maintaining sanity? Bonus points if it’s not the usual ‘sleep when you’re dead’ boomer advice. What’s your survival algorithm?
survival algorithm? lol. you survive bc the firm owns your soul. real talk: the ‘strategic unresponsiveness’ you heard about is just seniors ghosting till midnight so juniors eat the work. pro tip: hide in bathroom stalls for 20min power naps. set outlook delays on all emails sent after 1am. it’s all theater anyway
my md swears by 4am yoga but i cant even find time to brush teeth tbh. started using 15min timer blocks for micro-naps btwn models? idk if helps but feels less dead. any1 try that?
I mandate three non-negotiables after burning out in 2017: 1) 4-hour sleep core (11p-3a) protected via auto-reply blackout, 2) Sunday morning strategy session with analysts to front-load week priorities, 3) ‘deadline triage’ matrix categorizing requests as bleed/need/greed. It requires VP buy-in but reduced my team’s all-nighters by 30% last year.
You’ve got this!! I track mood spikes post-coffee naps + use a sunrise alarm! Tiny wins add up 
2023 internal study at a BB showed analysts using Pomodoro variations (25/5 splits) completed models 18% faster with 22% fewer errors. My pod implemented ‘protected recovery windows’ – 90min work blocks followed by 15min mandatory downtime. Cut our average week from 102h to 94h without MD pushback.