Get Everything Done

When you're in the middle of a bunch of tasks but you simply have to leave home right now to avoid missing your appointment, train, plane or whatever, you can reduce your needs to a bare-bones list of actions:

- close down the computer, put any food that's out into the fridge, load your bag with documents and laptop, put keys, cards and cash into pockets, check the heating's off, if relevant, and go.

I have a similar minimal list of actions that I need to carry out to get into bed at a sane and sensible time:

-At 23:00 my Net-blocker kicks in: I block the Web from 11 pm to 11 am.
Earbuds go in and I listen to podcasts as:
- Food goes into fridge,
- Bathroom
- Undress (If I'm running behind, I throw clothes down without hanging them up.)
- I switch to the podcast playlist that reliably gets me to sleep: generally lightweight banter that isn't demanding or provocative. (It's even better at sending me off than white noise. Music doesn't work - it either interests me or annoys me.)
- Turn out bedside light by midnight.

Light-out time is a simple, definite and controllable criterion; I don't currently set targets for harder-to-control things like time of going to sleep, quality of sleep, or time of waking (I set an alarm but generally wake up well before it goes off).

I now reliably hit the midnight target, where previously I would go to bed at chaotic small-hours times. I think blocking the Net to a schedule and so cutting my umbilical connection with YouTube is probably the single most effective step in achieving this.

Hi Chris, hope you have the BBC In Our Time as one of the podcasts in you put me to sleep playlist. Sometimes the topic is too interesting but most times it is the perfect way to drift off...

@ vegheadjones

Thanks for the tip, VHJ. I'll give it a try, but I suspect I'll find Melvyn Bragg too annoying to get to sleep afterwards.