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 timelogs. Good mornings start the
Speaker 1: night before. I don't mean that you need to pack
Speaker 1: everyone's lunches and layout clothes and all that you can
Speaker 1: if you want, but you don't have to. What I
Speaker 1: really mean is that the key to a good morning
Speaker 1: is getting enough sleep, and the key to that is
Speaker 1: going to bed on time. One of the best things
Speaker 1: you and do to get control of your time is
Speaker 1: to give yourself a bedtime. That way, you can turn
Speaker 1: unproductive evening hours into productive morning hours. Setting a bedtime
Speaker 1: as a grown up is pretty simple. You just need
Speaker 1: to ask yourself a few questions. First, what time would
Speaker 1: I like to wake up in the morning. Let's be
Speaker 1: honest here. Well, it's fun to read stories of people
Speaker 1: who wake up at four am to do triathlons. This
Speaker 1: isn't realistic for most of us, but maybe you could
Speaker 1: aim to wake up at six thirty in order to
Speaker 1: get thirty minutes of writing in a shower in before
Speaker 1: your middle schooler wakes up at seven fifteen. Second question,
Speaker 1: how much sleep do I need? Let's be honest here too.
Speaker 1: The vast majority of adults needs somewhere between seven to
Speaker 1: eight hours per day. The odds that you need less
Speaker 1: than six and a half hours are very low. I've
Speaker 1: seen thousands of time logs over the years, including from
Speaker 1: some very successful people, and I've seen only a handful
Speaker 1: of short sleepers, and even those people tend to average
Speaker 1: out around six hours per day when you look at
Speaker 1: the whole week, not four. So let's say your number
Speaker 1: is seven point four hours. I'm choosing that number because
Speaker 1: it's my number. If I get eight hours of sleep
Speaker 1: on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, I'm cool with seven hours Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.
Speaker 1: Since this averages out to seven point four hours. Final question,
Speaker 1: what time do I need to be in bed in
Speaker 1: order to get this amount of sleep? This is a
Speaker 1: simple math question. I count back seven hours from six
Speaker 1: thirty am and I get PM. This is my bed time.
Speaker 1: Ideally I set an alarm for at least twenty minutes
Speaker 1: before that in order to give me time to brush
Speaker 1: my teeth, slowly eas into bed and so forth. But
Speaker 1: in any case, bedtime is bedtime, So figure out what
Speaker 1: your bed time should be. I know that some people
Speaker 1: hearing this, they're probably brisk sling at the idea of
Speaker 1: a bedtime. It brings up all kinds of battles from childhood.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to probe the psychological issues, but hear
Speaker 1: me out on this. The upside of giving yourself a
Speaker 1: bedtime is that it forces you to make a decision.
Speaker 1: If you know that you're supposed to be embedded at
Speaker 1: eleven thirty when rolls around, you have a choice. You
Speaker 1: can stay up. You are an adult, but having a
Speaker 1: bedtime nudges you to ask if the reason you're staying
Speaker 1: up is a good one. Maybe you and your spouse
Speaker 1: are having a wonderful time together. Awesome, you have my blessing.
Speaker 1: But maybe you're just hitting next in the Netflix queue.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's time to turn it off and thank yourself
Speaker 1: in the morning. Because here's the thing. Most of us
Speaker 1: responsible people just can't sleep in in the morning. We
Speaker 1: need to get our kids to school, we need to
Speaker 1: get ourselves to our jobs. So I like to think
Speaker 1: of it like this. Going to bed early is how
Speaker 1: grown ups sleep in. When you put it that way,
Speaker 1: going to bed on time sounds like a treat. In
Speaker 1: the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's
Speaker 1: to making the most of our time. Hey everybody, I'd
Speaker 1: love to hear from you. You can send me your tips,
Speaker 1: your questions, or anything else. Just connect with me on Twitter,
Speaker 1: Facebook and Instagram at Before Breakfast Pod that's B the
Speaker 1: number four, then Breakfast p o D. You can also
Speaker 1: shoot me an email at Before Breakfast Podcast at iHeart
Speaker 1: media dot com that Before Breakfast is spelled out with
Speaker 1: all the letters. Thanks so much. I look forward to
Speaker 1: staying in touch.