It's difficult to get to bed on time. Use some of the strategies below to get on a schedule that works for you.

• When you get home, write down all the things you want to accomplish that evening, from eating dinner to walking the dog, to putting the kids to bed.
• Next to each item guess about how much time it will take to accomplish this task.
• Add 10 minutes for every 3 items on the list.
• Rank the activities in order of importance.
• Add up the total number of minutes, and determine how much time you actually have before your new bedtime.
• Next, cross off all but 4 items; if you see that you can complete these tasks and still have more than an hour left before your bedtime, you can add something from the list back on.
• For anything that can wait, start a weekend list.

Identify Your Time Sinks – It can be a real eye opener to look at the typical activities you perform at night, and then see how much time they should and do take.

• Make a list of all of your activities.
• Next to the list write out about how much time it usually takes you to perform each task.
• What are the top 2 things that seem to take up most of your time?
• Try to come up with alternative ways to perform these top 2 activities:
• Enlisting someone’s help.
• Performing small parts of these activities throughout the day so you do not have to do so much in the evening.
• Determine if the activity is really needed.
• If you find that you lose track of time at night, try setting an alarm to go off when its time to start getting ready for bed.

Create a Solution Finder – here you will list all the reasons why you are not getting to bed on time, and add at least 2 possible solutions to each problem. We show an example below:

Issue:

Continuous monitoring of my child, to make sure she is in bed, or asleep

Solution:

• Enlist partner to help certain days of the week.
• Place a child monitor in her room.
• Start a reward system for my child: if she stays in bed for 5 out of 7 nights she gets a prize she chooses.

These practical (and not too time-consuming!) exercises can really make the difference in keeping to your new bedtime, and finding that better night of sleep. Download the Solutions Journal.