Speaker 1: Good morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Speaker 1: Today's tip is to give yourself a bedtime. I know
Speaker 1: a lot of people listen to this podcast in the morning.
Speaker 1: I hope that today your morning started at the time
Speaker 1: you wanted it to start. Hopefully you didn't spend the
Speaker 1: thirty minutes after your first alarm battling with the snooze button.
Speaker 1: Hopefully no one in your house was racing around and
Speaker 1: yelling this morning because the morning started thirty minutes after
Speaker 1: it was supposed to. But in case your morning didn't
Speaker 1: go so well, here's one of the most important secrets
Speaker 1: I've learned from studying people's time logs. Good mornings start
Speaker 1: the night before. I don't mean that you need to
Speaker 1: pack everyone's lunches and lay out clothes and all that
Speaker 1: you can if you want, but you don't have to.
Speaker 1: What I really mean is that the key to a
Speaker 1: good morning is getting enough sleep, and the key to
Speaker 1: that is going to bed on time. One of the
Speaker 1: best things you can do to get control of your
Speaker 1: time is to give yourself a bedtime. That way, you
Speaker 1: can turn unproductive evening hours into productive morning hours. Setting
Speaker 1: a bedtime as a grown up is pretty simple. You
Speaker 1: just need to ask yourself a few questions. First, what
Speaker 1: time would I like to wake up in the morning.
Speaker 1: Let's be honest here. While it's fun to read stories
Speaker 1: of people who wake up at four am to do triathlons,
Speaker 1: this isn't realistic for most of us. But maybe you
Speaker 1: could aim to wake up at six point thirty in
Speaker 1: order to get thirty minutes of writing and a shower
Speaker 1: in before your middle schooler wakes up at seven fifteen.
Speaker 1: Second question, how much sleep do I need? Let's be
Speaker 1: honest here too. The vast majority of adults need somewhere
Speaker 1: between seven to eight hours per day. The odds that
Speaker 1: you need less than six and a half hours are
Speaker 1: very low. I've seen thousands of time loogs over the years,
Speaker 1: including from some very successful people, and I've seen only
Speaker 1: a handful of short sleepers, and even those people tend
Speaker 1: to average out around six hours per day when you
Speaker 1: look at the whole week, not four. So let's say
Speaker 1: your number is seven point four hours. I'm choosing that
Speaker 1: number because it's my number. If I get eight hours
Speaker 1: of sleep on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, I'm cool with
Speaker 1: seven hours Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday Thursday. Since this averages out
Speaker 1: to seven point four hours. Final question, what time do
Speaker 1: I need to be in bed in order to get
Speaker 1: this amount of sleep? This is a simple math question.
Speaker 1: I count back seven hours from six thirty am and
Speaker 1: I get eleven thirty pm. This is my bedtime. Ideally
Speaker 1: I set an alarm for at least twenty minutes before
Speaker 1: that in order to give me time to brush my teeth, slowly,
Speaker 1: ease into bed, and so forth. But in any case,
Speaker 1: bedtime is bedtime, So figure out what your bedtime should be.
Speaker 1: I know that some people hearing this are probably bristling
Speaker 1: at the idea of a bedtime. It brings up all
Speaker 1: kinds of battles from childhood. I'm not going to probe
Speaker 1: the psychological issues, but hear me out on this. The
Speaker 1: upside of giving yourself a bedtime is that it forces
Speaker 1: you to make a decision. If you know that you're
Speaker 1: supposed to be in bed at eleven thirty, when eleven
Speaker 1: thirty rolls around, you have a choice. You can stay up.
Speaker 1: You are an adult, but having a bedtime nudges you
Speaker 1: to ask if the reason you're staying up is a
Speaker 1: good one. Maybe you and your spouse are having a
Speaker 1: wonderful time together. Awesome, you have my blessing. But maybe
Speaker 1: you're just hitting next in the Netflix queue. Maybe it's
Speaker 1: time to turn it off and thank yourself in the morning.
Speaker 1: Because here's the thing, most of us responsible people just
Speaker 1: can't sleep in in the morning. We need to get
Speaker 1: our kids to school, we need to get ourselves to
Speaker 1: our jobs. So I like to think of it like this.
Speaker 1: Going to bed early is how grown ups sleep in.
Speaker 1: When you put it that way, going to bed on
Speaker 1: time sounds like a treat. In the meantime, this is Laura.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and here's to making the most of
Speaker 1: our time. Hey, everybody, I'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 1: You can send me your tips, your questions, or anything else.
Speaker 1: Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at
Speaker 1: Before Breakfast Pod that's b E the number four then
Speaker 1: Breakfast Pod. You can also shoot me an email at
Speaker 1: Before Breakfast Podcast at iHeartMedia dot com that Before Breakfast
Speaker 1: is spelled out with all the letters. Thanks so much.
Speaker 1: I look forward to staying in touch.