Recently (two nights ago – very recently) my husband, who regularly goes to bed before I do because it takes him 4x as long as long to fall asleep, asked if I would be staying up late on his way to bed. I replied that I hadn’t really thought about it, and proceeded to work and plan (I’ll be honest – mostly play) for the next four hours, not getting to bed until 12:30 a.m. the next morning.

What was my problem, you may ask?

I didn’t think about it.

I know from experience that when I spend 15 minutes or so – sometimes even less – thinking about what I want to get done at work or with the kids, my success rate and how I feel about my day is a lot higher than when I just “let things go”.

Maybe it’s all in my head. Seeing things checked off on a list does give a person a certain sense of accomplishment. Maybe I’m accomplishing the exact same amount of stuff in a night when I just goof off for hours as opposed to nights like last night, when I made a list of six items and accomplished five, all before midnight (mostly).

But even if it is just an illusion, I think I like it. As I write this, it’s about 14 minutes to midnight. I think I’ll polish this up, then spend five minutes thinking about tomorrow.