Getting ready, the commute, washing up, winding down — whatever sits between the clock and the pillow.
This is the total across the day, including a nap if you fit one in.
This is not a lab-grade sleep model. It is the same arithmetic I use on my own rota, turned into a form: work backward or forward from your shift, leave room for the gap between the clock and actually being asleep, and be honest about how much sleep you are really chasing. The rest is just clock maths.
Why nights get split into two blocks
Mornings and afternoons give you one continuous stretch of sleep before or after the shift, and the calculator treats them that way. Nights are different. Going into a night shift on nothing but a normal night's sleep from two days ago is a bad plan — you are awake for the better part of 24 hours by the time you clock out.
So for a night shift the calculator offers a nap before you go in, on top of the main sleep block after you get home. Split sleep is not as good as one long block, but it is a lot better than pretending you can run a night shift on willpower alone. I have written more about why nights are the hardest shift to train around in this guide.
This is a planning tool, not medical advice. It is built on general shift-work sleep patterns and my own rota, not on your health. If you are dealing with ongoing insomnia, or shift work is wrecking your sleep no matter what you try, that is worth raising with a doctor rather than working around it forever.
Sleep sets the ceiling. The planner works under it.
Once you know how each shift sleeps, the Shift Training Planner puts your sessions on the days that can actually support them.
Open the Shift Training Planner