just noticing things
My sleep time has been much later than I’d like it to be for the past couple of weeks, and honestly, it’s mostly been of my own doing, as I keep sleeping late even when I have an evening in to myself at home. I always think I have plenty of time in the night, then I wind up scrambling to do everything I want to do before going to bed.
This morning, after waking up underslept once again, I decided the frequency of this occurrence pointed to a systems problem rather than a user problem, and I really tried to think through patterns and routine—all the things I do in the evening, and how much time I actually need to block out to wind down. When I added it all up (stretch, journal, read, not to mention little and not-so-little things like brush teeth/skincare/blow dry hair if I showered just before bed) I was frankly quite astonished to realise that I need to block out an hour at least and another half hour on top of that if I want a very comfortable buffer.
In my head, all these activities were like, 20 minutes’ work tops. Obviously anyone can tell when I write it all out that it is in fact not 20 minutes’ work. But no wonder I kept going to bed late. I just wasn’t giving myself enough time to do All of the Things. I hung out online doing everything else but starting the wind-down routine because I had no idea how long it really took.
Every year, instead of resolutions, I pick a theme; this is a practice I picked up from CGP Grey a long time ago. Last year’s theme was healing. This year’s theme is presence. And part of putting that into action, for me this morning, was to start from simply noticing what was going on rather than assume I know the problem (poor discipline) and rushing to berate myself (Just Be More Disciplined!!) and/or implement some kind of fix that wouldn’t have been ideal in the long run.
I mean, to be fair, only time will tell if I really do manage to sort out my sleeping patterns. But I have to say that in the scant month and a half that I’ve been practising presence more consciously, I’ve been surprised over and over again by how many things we just do not notice at all. And I think there is great value in starting from awareness, whatever you do.