The Simplicity Project – Establish a regular bed time

The Simplicity Project she laughs at the days When one is setting out to change old habits and establish a regular bedtime, at a reasonable hour it would be best to first inform one’s spouse of one’s intentions, rather than assume he read your blog post about it. Because if he doesn’t know he is very likely to get in the way of all your efforts unawares.

Night 1- I get ready for and in bed by midnight my target bed time for the week. Aaron is feeling chatty and starts a conversation when he gets into bed a few minutes later. However I can’t talk to him because I am trying to get an awake toddler back to sleep and he’s really restless. I eventually fall asleep.

Night 2: Toddler doesn’t wake up, but 5 year old does. My family doesn’t want me to get regular sleep. I do make it to bed in the area of midnight. Have to tear myself away from something interesting the husband is doing to do it.

Night 3: There is marital nudge nudge winking and a timely bed hour that is completely thwarted by first Bam Bam waking and then Little, who likes to sleep in our bed and we’re trying to teach her not to unless she really needs comfort. I fall asleep beside Bam Bam, then Little, then Bam Bam again.

Night 4: My birthday party. Good friends staying late and talking about interesting things. By 11 I am starting to nod and feel tired. By 11:30 I can’t do it anymore and slip away to do some quick clean up because I need to head to bed. This night owl is being reformed.

Night 5: In bed on time.

Night 6: Dinner guests from out of town that stay until 1am. It’s awesome to see them. I get to bed at 2am. I am completely destroyed the next day. How did I ever do this before?

Night 7: trying to make a button for the simplicity project. Get to bed at 12:30am, Aaron is still watching something.

Thoughts

I’m going to keep doing this for the rest of the year. It appears that a night owl can change after all. I feel better in the mornings also. I think it would be very good for Aaron to do also but that’s obviously his choice, not mine.

Having a set bedtime made me use my evenings better. I was eying the clock so that I could get to the tasks, like loading the dishwasher, and kitchen clean up, in time to still get to bed on time. My evening where actually more efficient than without a bedtime.

I need to figure out when to fit in talking to my spouse though.

This week’s project in time management comes from this article that I read this week. How (and Why) to Stop Multitasking. I will this week only do one thing at a time. As much as possible. Obviously I always have to parent and watch Bam Bam. But I will only do school during school time. I will do one task at a time during work time. I will not try to catch up on facebook and make sure the kids are getting ready for bed at the same time. I expect this exercise will drive me crazy because waiting for children to finish things can be extremely boring, and frustrating. However, I also intend to make them wait for me to finish something before expecting me to answer them. As I type the Girl is waiting beside me because I told her I would talk to her when I I was finished typing this paragraph. This could be good for all of us.

Want to join in?

Grab the button here, and link up your post about what you are doing to simplify your life. You can do the same projects that I am doing, or projects of your own. Feel free to do last weeks project this week.

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