It might seem like something that’s too small of a detail to really affect a person’s entire career — but thinking that way can be a mistake. Yes, you may only have a certain number of days when you come into work bleary, burdened with a headache, and generally unable to function until around 10 or 11 o’clock in the morning. But you may be having more of these days than you think you are, and it can start to crush productivity and affect long-term results.

Other coworkers may notice it – or it might get noticed at the top, by a boss who becomes concerned about someone’s overall capability. Or, it may go entirely unnoticed, until the person who’s suffering from the sleep deprivation starts to realize that he or she is having a hard time handling his or her work.

Here are some ways to avoid some tricky problems with not getting enough shut-eye at night.

Don’t Ignore Family and Career Balance

One of the biggest issues with sleep deprivation is where someone with a fairly demanding job ends up having a kid.

Many of us know the daily and nightly trials and struggles of raising a child from an infant to an adolescent. Every stage has its own burdens — but the worst sleep disruptors are the first few years. Feeding, teething, and issues with co-sleeping all things that can cause serious disruptions to somebody’s sleep calendar. That’s not to mention other issues where children may wake up because of other things like digestive or respiratory issues.

One of the biggest ways to nip sleep deprivation in the bud is to make sure there’s enough qualified supervision on hand for each individual child. That might mean allocating some discretionary money to a third-party caregiver who can provide supervision in the hours where one of the parents needs to be asleep in order to work well throughout the next day.

Evaluate Party Time Issues

Even singles can have serious problems with sleep deprivation. It might be cute the first time somebody comes in on a Friday with a raging hangover, because they overindulged in Thursday’s happy hours. But it might not be cute the second or third time, or later on when every day seems to be hangover day.

There may come a time in a person’s career when he or she has to think about how to limit the party lifestyle in order to fit a career plan. In these cases, most people would agree that the career comes first — after all, how are you going to pay for all those drinks? The problem is often in the implementation, and making sure that using enough self-discipline keeps things on an even keel.

Dealing with Insomnia

Too many people simply feel that insomnia is “natural” or that when it happens, there’s nothing that can be done about it. But some creativity and initiative can help someone who’s suffering from sleep issues to get a grip and get on with their work life.

In some cases, treatment is the answer. Go to a sleep center, get evaluated, and see what can be done about your eyes popping up and anytime from 2 to 4 a.m. in the morning.

In other cases, someone who’s suffering from insomnia might simply adjust a schedule and find ways to integrate work into those late night or early morning hours. In today’s remote work culture, there may be a good chunk of time that you can spend knocking out core tasks whenever you do wake up. That might relieve some of your stress and alleviate some of your time management problems, which could in turn help you sleep better.

For much more on productivity puzzles and business management issues, keep an eye on Full Steam Staffing as we detail what we’ve found helpful in while working with the Ontario, California business community.