⏱️ The Best Minute: An EASY hack to better sleep
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💡 1 IDEA FROM ME
Want an easy hack to help you go to bed consistently on time and to reduce stress in your life?
Turn off your phone before going to bed.
For more than a year now I have been turning off my phone by 9:15 PM every weeknight. I use a digital alarm clock in the mornings to wake up and do not turn on my phone until about 45 minutes after I wake up in the morning.
Having your phone off (not just put away somewhere) allows you to avoid ending (and starting) your day with endless scrolling. Turning your phone off at least 30-45 minutes before you go to bed allows you to do more meaningful things, actually relax, and/or help you get ready for tomorrow without having to rush because the night has slipped away from you.
It also means you aren’t in bed, scrolling, and staring at the blue light emitting from your phone which tells your brain it is not time to sleep yet (even if you are tired).
What if someone tries to call you in the middle of the night? Remember two important things:
1) It is an extremely rare event for most people.
2) There likely isn’t anything you could do about it at 3 AM anyway
Generally speaking, it isn’t wise to live 99.9% of your life based upon a 0.1% chance of something happening.
At some point is it possible I will miss something in the middle of the night because my phone is off? Yes.
Will it be worth the uncountable hours it saved me and the vastly improved sleep I got over years of turning my phone off at night? No, it will not.
Not convinced? Try it for one week and see what happens. Turn off your phone 30-45 minutes each night before you go to bed and just see what happens.
💬 2 QUOTES FROM OTHERS
I. Musonius Rufus on thinking long-term:
“If you accomplish something good with hard work, the labor passes quickly, but the good endures; if you do something shameful in pursuit of pleasure, the pleasure passes quickly, but the shame endures.”
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II. Marion Milner on what stops people from seeing clearly:
“There seemed to be endless obstacles preventing me from living with my eyes open, but as I gradually followed up clue after clue it seemed that the root cause of them all was fear.”
📖 1 BRIEF BOOK REVIEW
The 5 AM Club by Robin Sharma.
This book, written in the style of a fictional story, is about the benefits of waking up at 5 AM. It includes why it is helpful, what to do with your morning, and various benefits.
I appreciated the book, but am conflicted on how to appropriately rate it. I found the story to be much too cheesy, and to me, there were too many principles it tries to communicate, so it muddies the whole message. Still, I was glad to read it. But felt it could have been packaged much better.
6.5/10
💯 1 THING I RECOMMEND
Deep Questions with Cal Newport
Deep Questions is a weekly podcast that focuses on productivity, how to work deeply, increasing your focus, and eliminating distractions from your life. It’s a great resource for those who often feel busy and their life isn’t quite aligned with their values. I enjoy its practicality and insights into how to live a deeper life.
🤔 1 QUESTION TO LEAVE YOU WITH
If I spend 30 minutes today creating anything I wanted, what would I create?
