Why I Started Making My Bed Every Day at the Age of 45
Why not the first 44 years? I'd like to toss up a few excuses at you, dear reader friend, but that's not my style. The quick and dirty answer is that I didn't make it as a kid, never formed the habit as an adult, and didn't feel the value of doing it. Until now.
What changed? I started thinking about it as accomplishing something in the day right away.
Mel Robbins Says Making Your Bed is a Gift to Yourself
After building the habit of making my bed every day for a while driven by enjoying the productivity boost first thing in the morning, I started thinking of making my bed as a gift to myself. Mel Robbins even makes her bed when she stays in hotels.
Some nights, I talk my kids through the yoga Savasana pose (the final resting pose at the end of a yoga session). I "coach" them through relaxing their body, getting the last wiggles out of their fingers and toes, then deep breathing. I tell the kids to "give your body the gift of sleep" as part of this Lucas Family Savasana routine when they struggle to drift off.
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I started thinking of sleep as a daily gift, and it rolled into my morning. I'm giving myself a gift by making my bed each morning.
Why Should I Make My Bed?
By making my bed every day, I start my day having finished something. With my first few steps of the day, I am already productive and mentally crossing something off my list for the day. There's a proven link between productivity and making your bed.
Making your bed to kick off productivity is not a new, revolutionary concept. Admiral McRaven literally wrote a book about the connection titled: Make Your Bed. Charles Duhigg wrote "making your bed every morning is correlated with better productivity" in his book The Power of Habit.
Why Start Now?
You are the author of your life story. You can start a new chapter at any time. Turns out, I can write a new chapter about daily productivity at the age of 45. Here's why I have started making my bed every day at the age of 45:
Starts the day having accomplished something.
Sets the tone for the day.
It encourages me to keep the rest of the room tidy.
It's quick to accomplish.
Making my bed sets an example to my children.
It makes my husband happy.
So that last one... My husband has made his bed every day. He's been in the Navy for 27 years, and they drill that into your head in boot camp. He likes getting into a made bed at night and has been reaping these mental rewards for nearly three decades if not longer as a kid.
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Before I took on the habit to make my bed every day, I only made the bed because he liked it that way. He never once asked me to do it, which deserves some props. He always just did it himself or left it unmade if he was the first up. Then, he'd make it after I got up.
I tried doing it for the hubster. I tried, but the habit didn't stick because I was doing it for reasons I could not sustain. I was not motivated personally to do it, and was only motivated by doing something for him. While it's nice to do things for your spouse, making the bed wasn't the thing that I could do for him every day.
Until I changed my perspective about this, I didn't make my bed. My parents didn't task making the bed as a chore. I did not task myself as an adult until the age of 45. Now, it's like keeping a commitment to myself every day.
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