Get Everything Done

Bad habit: Going to bed late (1AM +)
Goal: Create scaffolding to reinforce a "shut down" ritual to be in bed by 11PM

Problems:
* My other half enjoys going to bed late (though she wakes up early, and knows she needs to go to bed earlier)
* In the past, I've done my best work late at night (early morning)
* Temptation to use (and accessibility to) the computer & iPhone leads to hours of web-surfing (My gut tells me I need to shutoff my computer and PHYSICALLY MOVE the computer to the basement, car, etc.)
* Most days, I don't NEED to be awake until late-AM or early-afternoon
* Some nights end at 9PM

Ok folks, you're some of the brightest PRONs - http://wiki.43folders.com/index.php/Productivity_pr0n - I've met online. Looking forward to your suggestions, advice, etc.

The only way I've ever been able to make myself go to bed earlier was to adopt a schedule that forced me to get up earlier, so that I was tired enough by the end of the day that I would go to bed. I've done this with scheduling morning classes or committing to eating breakfast with friends everyday while in college, or making time to go to the fitness center or walk before work. I know that if I'm not tired at 11, I won't go to sleep at 11, even if I need to get up super early the next day compared to normal.

So my suggestion is, have a reason why you have to get up before 9 every morning (or earlier if you have to), and get up that early everyday, regardless of how late you were up the night before. Eventually, you'll have to sleep earlier or wear yourself out.

Maybe you could make this a team effort with your wife, since she has to get up earlier than you. A commitment to breakfast together everyday, perhaps?

I think you have a good handle on what to do in the evenings to make staying up less pleasant, but if you know you can sleep late every day you'll find some reason to stay up late.

The other option is to acknowledge that you are a night owl and schedule your life accordingly--which is what some of my family have done

One thing I found VERY effective: Cancel cable and internet service. I'm not sure I could live with that, but I know such problems of wasted time etc., vanished when I didn't have those media. Another mechanical means is an electrical timer that shuts stuff off at 10:30.

For task related stuff, I have the habit of looking at my list regularly and it's easy to attach habits to that, but I don't tend to be doing such at night so that doesn't work.

Leo Babuta advises that you establish routines, rituals. Haven't tried this, but set a timer to say 9:56 and when the bell rings, start going through a specific series of activities that eventually get you to bed at 11:00 and ready to sleep.

Thanks guys!

<<set a timer to say 9:56 and when the bell rings, start going through a specific series of activities that eventually get you to bed at 11:00 and ready to sleep>>

Not a bad idea. And the scaffolding could be a checklist of things i do every night for a few weeks.

I am always too tired to do the things i want to do after work and since i can t manage to get up early i found another solution. I take a nap just after dinner. Since i am tired it s easy and when i wake up one hour later i have a few hours ane a lot of energy. I m happy to have found this tweak.

Lifehacks... tweaks... all of these things seemed easier when I was single. On the other hand, married life provides a number of opportunities to instill habits that were otherwise very difficult.

I don't know if you've seen Habitforge - it's a web app to try to help in establishing new habits. The idea is that if you can do something every day for 21 days you will have established a habit. So you tell it the habit you want to establish, and you get an email every morning asking you if you did that thing yesterday - if not, the counter is set back down to zero and you have to start getting up to 21 days again.

http://www.habitforge.com/

Hi Avrum,

I use the 30 Day Challenge (Leo Babauta. Zen Habits website. Power of Less Book) as part of my DIT set up. I find it helpful.

Good luck

Just get a dog. Our new arrival (a two year old Jack Russell rescue dog) insists on getting up around 6:45am each day. I'm afraid he doesn't take no for an answer!!! After a few days you are very keen to get to bed earlier!

What's the problem with going to bed late? Isn't that when you get your best work done?

I would never take away the best time to work, whether that is morning or night (for me it's night)

My partner used to be a get up early in the morning person, until she started living with me:)

@David - i've been using habitforge for appx 2 weeks now. And recording "NO" each time :(

Step one: Go to bed at 11.
Step two: repeat.

It really is not that hard.

When I have lived with a significant other, I have always insisted we sleep in separate rooms. It worked well.

Now when I live with an SO, I insist we do so separately. It works even better.

LOL You two are killing me. Avrum, why do you want to go to bed at 11? It's possible you're not that committed to doing so. I find it easier to get up at the same time than to sleep at the same time. If you do something rewarding first thing, you can establish the habit quickly. The 21 day thing is bunk if you ask me. I got up at 6 am for 3 months straight and quit doing it regularly.

<<Step one: Go to bed at 11. Step two: repeat.>>

Norman, as my Bubby would say: "Oy vey zmir".

<<It really is not that hard>>

For you perhaps.
Norman - is there anything you find difficult that another finds easy? Anything?

<<When I have lived with a significant other, I have always insisted we sleep in separate rooms. It worked well>>

Uh huh. But I ENJOY being married ;)

<<Avrum, why do you want to go to bed at 11?>>

Because it's better than 1AM!

Avrum,

Bubby should be saying "oy gevalt vos fur ein shande fur di goyim!"

Go to bed!

Mel is right; she is the rightest on this board after me.

Yes Avrum. Look at my dishes. Some people love doing them; others hate doing them and both groups do their dishes. No magic here. They simply engage in gross motor movements.

I hate doing them. I used to be concerned about the fact I hated doing them and the fact I didn't do them as much I "should". I used to procrastinate. I other words I wasn't doing my dishes when I didn't want to but thought I should.

Then I realized. I hated doing them and didn't want to do them. So I didn't. Eventually, I would want to do them, because I needed a plate or didn't care for the smell. And eventually after gradually (through exposure to use your language) I found them less and less difficult to do. Heck I even like doing them nowadays.

Never did I hack or whatever. I got honest and just did them when I wanted to.

The other tactic would have been just to get up and do them. I have to do this at times for other things. I don't need hacks or excitement about doing the task.

The oil in my car was due to be changed according to the care manual. I hate this. So I took the other tact, since waiting till I "want" to do something might mean waiting after my car blows up. I got up and did a bunch of motor movements and just about as I was finishing, I found myself "motivated" and excited about doing it.

What else is there to do?

You want to be in bed at 11? Go to bed at 11. I bet you $10,000 I am capable of getting into my bed tonight at 11 or any other time you suggest.

Falling asleep at 11 is another matter.

>>...is there anything you find difficult that another finds easy? Anything? <<

And here I thought ubermensch was just a theoretical concept in Nietzsche's head.

Avrum, I used to be a bit of a night owl myself (more of a 24 hour stay up kind of person). It took a couple of months to train myself to go to bed earlier. This is pre-internet days, but I would make myself lay there and my mind would just race. Of course, it's a double edged sword since I now get up between 4 and 6 a.m. and have done so for years and can't seem to make myself sleep in, no matter if I roll into the house at 2 a.m. or not.

I read this book years ago when trying to get more than my basic 5 hours a night and it was beneficial to me at the time (can't remember what it was about now though to give specific advice):
http://www.amazon.com/Promise-Sleep-Medicine-Connection-Happiness/dp/0440509017/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1269034126&sr=8-2

Shouldn't' you guys be having kids about now? That would solve the problem pretty quick. :-) Maybe be careful what you wish for...

Avrum, I found this through an amazon recommendation on the above book I recommended:

http://thesciencenetwork.org/programs/waking-up-to-sleep

Is your issue getting yourself aroused (via internet, exciting projects etc.) - not other stuff related to the wife - prior to going to bed, or in the time period you think you should be going to bed? I hope you find some value in the site anyway.

Books on how to go to bed! I have got to start writing.

Sorry Jacqueline, I am merely part of the bridge, one of the last rungs of course, but still merely part of the bridge.

Norman, thanks for giving me plenty of giggles today! I have really enjoyed it.

Well Norman, I think it's a bit more complicated than that for those who suffer from insomnia and sleep disorders - none of which I think are Avrum's issues but it might apply to someone else reading this. And I find it interesting, but then I find everything interesting...

Bridge? Bridge over troubled waters?

I've had insomnia; I've gone days without any sleep. Most of my life I have slept less than four hours per night.

But I surely am able to get into bed pretty much whenever I want to.

And when I finally decided to take seriously sleep hygiene and get honest about why I didn't want to sleep before, I became able to sleep eight hours a day. Had to be honest about why I wanted not to sleep first.

"Honesty" I find is instrumental in most change or acceptance of not changing.

RE: Ladders and Bridges. Nietzsche is only understood properly when done so incorrectly. Was mixing my metaphors.

Two quotes the old Kraut wrote:

"The overman is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: the overman shall be the meaning of the earth.... Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman—a rope over an abyss ... what is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end."

"There is a great ladder of religious cruelty, and, of its many rungs, three are the most important. People used to make human sacrifices to their god, perhaps even sacrificing those they loved the best. . .Then, during the moral epoch of humanity, people sacrificed the strongest instincts they had, their 'nature,' to their god; the joy of this particular festival shines in the cruel eyes of the ascetic, that enthusiastic piece of 'anti-nature.' Finally: what was left to be sacrificed? In the end, didn't people have to sacrifice all comfort and hope, everything holy or healing, any faith in hidden harmony or a future filled with justice and bliss? Didn't people have to sacrifice God himself and worship rocks, stupidity, gravity, fate, or nothingness out of sheer cruelty to themselves? To sacrifice God for nothingness - that paradoxical mystery of the final cruelty has been reserved for the race that is now approaching: by now we all know something about this. -

Why did you not want to sleep at first Norman?

I've always thought that the best cure for insomnia is to become a subsistence farmer; no late night distractions, guaranteed sleep and killer abs to boot!

Thanks for all the suggestions.

From the atheists to the disgruntled psychiatric survivors, from the AF'ers to the Orthodox DIT'ers, y'all are a great community.

New thought, gleaned from Jack Canfield and others: Write down the reason you want sleep at 11:00. Hypothetically, "I want to get to bed at 11:00 so I can function at work without 12 cups of coffee." Then when your watch beeps 11:00, review your reason and make a choice:
(a) go with it, or
(b) Say "I choose to watch Jay Leno (or continue writing my magnum opus) and don't care that I won't be able to function at work." Go with it, and be satisfied that the outcome is what you chose.

Avrum,

I'd be interested to know what you plan to do.

<<I'd be interested to know what you plan to do. >>
1. In iCal, I have an appt set - from Sunday to Thursday - at 9:30PM entitled: "Wind Down"
2. Work the "Wind Down" checklist:

Checklist:
a. Log today's successes, and MITs for tomorrow
b. Look at calendar
c. Review task list
d. Shutoff computer
e. Yoga

I'm monitoring my progress via habitforge.

smileypete,

The answers are personal but some I don't mind sharing.

Going to sleep earlier meant missing out on certain social activities. I didn't want to be tired and I also didn't want to go to sleep. I was thinking like a child.

I didn't like what I was doing for a living. So I rewarded myself by making "the most" of my time away from work. This made work more unbearable and I made even more most of my time. Again, childish thinking.

These among others reasons informed my behavior. Getting clear about my fears and anxieties and honest about how exhausted I wanted to be vs. living in a fantasy world, I had two choices:

Accept the exhaustion and stop whining and stop looking for hacks and begin to simply enjoy completely what I was forsaking sleep for and accept the consequences of my exhaustion.

Or go to bed and accept what I would be missing by being more rested. Sleep hygiene is quite clear. And works for 99.9% of everyone. Just like eating less works for everyone who wants to lose weight. People just want the world to conform to their desires.

I had decades of practice of being an "insomniac" so I spent a few months practicing to be a "regular" sleeper. It worked.

I decided that the later was preferable. Either decision was perfectly acceptable. Basically, I tried acting like an adult living in the real world, rather wishing the world would conform to my infantile desires.

Tonight I am using my practice as an insomniac to get a bunch of stuff finished. It is nice to know, I have a choice now.

FWIW.

"From the atheists to the disgruntled psychiatric survivors, from the AF'ers to the Orthodox DIT'ers, y'all are a great community."

Atheists just like reading about the science of sleep before going to bed.
Psychiatric survivors need to delve deeply into their problem and take months to come to the solution that takes the atheist less than a week.
AFer's go to bed when it stands out.
And DIT'ers go to bed after midnight (tomorrow).

"didn't like what I was doing for a living. So I rewarded myself by making "the most" of my time away from work. This made work more unbearable and I made even more most of my time."

Bingo! Nicely done Norman.

Norman, thanks for sharing. I too have done the 'making the most of time away' by staying up way too late as well.

I think people often fail to change smoking, eating, sleeping behavior because they're not giving it 100%, that is, one hundred percent.

By not wanting to give it 100% in order to spend 20% elsewhere, then 'force of habit' is far more likely to overwhelm efforts to change.

Thanks Avrum for sharing your plans too.

The only thing I can add is to maybe to make things a bit more of a 'ritual' in a way with more physical actions, sensations, Eg make bedtime drink, putting a few things away, etc

smileypete:

"I think people often fail to change smoking, eating, sleeping behavior because they're not giving it 100%, that is, one hundred percent"

I think it is because they truly don't want to and won't admit it. It is sad too, because especially with folks who smoke and eat since they usually punish themselves with every bite or puff.

Was around a handful of smokers this weekend (we treat them like lepers in the States). Each commented at least once about how they "shouldn't" be doing it and it will kill them. What a drag (pardon the pun)! I love to smoke. One of my favorite things in the world.

I don't smoke though. I suggested that they quit punishing themselves and simply admit they are going to smoke right now and enjoy it. They believe if they "punish" themselves enough, they will stop. (please don't break out the technical definition of "punishment used by shrinks).

I used to smoke 2-3 packs a day. Loved every one of those cigarettes.

Here is how I quit and works everyone, every time:

1.) I put the cigarette out I was smoking.
2.) Did not smoke another.
3.) Kept doing 2.

And I was one of those strange folks who loved every aspect of smoking. Grew up around tobacco and had used it in some manner since I was eight or so. My body would wake up in the middle the night just so I could get that cigarette to tide me over till morning.

As I have said a million times elsewhere, honesty was key. I made the decision to quit in the middle of the last cigarette I smoked. I didn't even finish it.

Btw, I got the midichlorians for these Jedi mind tricks from Reynolds' constructive living stuff.