It’s OK to give yourself permission to forget.
A lot of people struggle with getting enough sleep. According to medical professionals, at least a third of Americans are sleep deprived. That is, for obvious reasons, not great. Not sleeping enough can lead to health problems, anxiety, and a loss of productivity.
There are a lot of reasons people don’t get enough sleep, but one of the most common is that we can’t shut off our brain. If you’re lying in bed thinking of all the things you need to do, it’s hard to relax and fall asleep. It doesn’t help that most of us spend a lot of time looking at screens, even while lying in bed. There’s nothing like the endless auto-play of Netflix to keep you up at night.
If you’re someone who struggles with falling asleep because you have a lot going on, instead of allowing it to cause stress and anxiety, there is something you can do. I call it the “five-by-one” technique. It’s pretty simple. Before you go to sleep, take five minutes and a single piece of paper and write down all the things you’re thinking about.
To be clear, I’m not talking about journaling. I’m talking about making a to-do list that you can tackle in the morning.
For example, if you keep thinking about an email you need to reply to, simply write down “reply to Mike.” Then, maybe you write down a thought you had about a feature for your latest product and a personal task your partner keeps asking you to do.
Instead of letting thoughts continue to race through your brain, take five minutes and write them down. Anything you want to be sure to remember in the morning, and anything that’s nagging at your mind should be captured on one piece of paper.
Then, keep the piece of paper next to your bed. If you find yourself thinking about more things as you try to fall asleep, write them down as well. I find that one of the reasons a busy mind makes it hard to sleep is that I’m stressed that I’ll forget something important by the time I wake up. If I write it down, that’s not a problem.
When you write things down, it lets your brain know that it’s OK to stop thinking about it. It’s OK to “forget” and clear out whatever space it occupies. Instead of lying in bed worrying, give yourself permission to forget everything. It’ll all be right there waiting for you in the morning, when you can actually do something about your list.
By the way, I strongly encourage you to do this on paper. This isn’t the kind of thing you should be doing on your iPhone. Sure, to-do-list apps are great, and can help you stay organized, but the likelihood that you end up distracted by your email, messages, or even YouTube is too great.
Also, there’s something about writing something with ink on a piece of paper that helps your brain let go. It’s almost as though the physical act of writing helps the thought find its way out of whatever corner it was stuck in inside your brain.
If you want to use your favorite to-do-list app, I recommend you transfer what you wrote down from paper to your device in the morning. That’s actually a helpful way to organize all of those thoughts and to-dos into a prioritized list.
Honestly, there’s another advantage to this rule, which is that you wake up with a list of the things that were important enough to keep you up the night before. That’s a pretty good place to start in the morning.
It seems obvious that if you want to be more productive and less stressed when you wake up in the morning, getting enough quality sleep is pretty important. The five-by-one rule is meant to help you do that by making it easier to fall asleep in the first place.
This article was written by Jason Aten from Inc. and was legally licensed through the Industry Dive Content Marketplace. Please direct all licensing questions to legal@industrydive.com.
This article is being provided for educational purposes only. It does not constitute an endorsement, solicitation or offer of any particular insurance product or product type and is not intended, and should not be relied upon, as insurance or financial advice.
GE- 5371171.1(1/23)(Exp.1/25)
