ofcrs

Stealing Time From Tomorrow

I'm writing this whilst I should probably be going to sleep...

I have an issue with sleep at the moment, and that's that I'm not getting enough of it. I often stay up late either on my phone in bed or doing a load of not a lot elsewhere in the house.

Every time I do this, I steal time from tomorrow.

That "not a lot" I do could otherwise be called procrastination. My theory is that I get to the end of the day and feel I haven't achieved what I'd have liked to, or that I haven't had enough time to decompress. When I reach this point I want some ME time, for once.

So I grab it, unconsciously categorising it as "free time" as I have nothing else to be doing then... apart from sleep.

I should go to sleep; I need that sleep.

It is not free time. It's quite the opposite - it's tomorrow's time. That time that I stay up is extra time that I'm asleep in the morning, or it's tiredness that I feel throughout the next day and week.

Let alone being tomorrow's time, maybe it's my future self's time. I've seen some studies on the affects of lack of sleep in middling years to long term health - not good. That should be the kick I need, but I still struggle.

I clearly recognise the behaviour - I'm documenting it here for one - but I'm not sure of the solution besides brute forcing myself to not do it. I think fondly of waking early and doing the same activities I procrastinate sleep with at night - just in the morning. Something to work on...

As a quick extra thought, I believe my 5 major time sinks to be:

I believe them all to be necessary, though I'm not sure decompression is termed correctly. The body and mind need down time but I should probably look to add in healthier decompression activities; reading and meditation for example.

I should probably consider exercise separate from 'fun stuff'?

#ramblings