Make Your Bed Day?

Make Your Bed Day? Oh yes, today is apparently Make Your Bed Day. Now, don’t get any ideas! This is not about you making your bed and lying in it. No, no! It’s about the habit of making your bed every morning as a way to start the day off right.

I know some people use the logic that they’re going to be sleeping again later in the day, so why bother. For others, it’s the very first task on waking up. I have a huge amount of guilt if the bed is not made by about 9 am. I’m talking about folding the sheets, putting the bed in order and but the bedspread on. There’s just something about an unmade bed that makes me feel uncomfortable. Jose laughs at me when I make the bed in hotel rooms, knowing fully well that the housekeeping staff will come in later and change the linen.   I feel I’m being lazy and have allowed the day to control me, and not the other way around. It’s different when I’m changing the linen – I take it all off and make the bed much later. Is there something wrong with me? The funny thing is that I’m otherwise not a neat freak.

 

Why Make Your Bed Day?

I had to go and check out what was it about bed-making that it deserved to have a day of its own.  I learnt that  making your bed every morning is a good habit to have.

When Apartment Therapy kindly informed us about today, they quoted Charles Duhigg from The Power of Habit. I’m taking the liberty of sharing the same quote.

Making your bed every morning is correlated with better productivity, a greater sense of well-being, and stronger skills at sticking with a budget. It’s not that a family meal or a tidy bed causes better grades or less frivolous spending. But somehow those initial shifts start chain reactions that help other good habits take hold.

Addressing the graduates at his alma mater, The University of Texas, William H. McCraven, the commander of the US Special Operations command, talked about several lessons he had learned as a Navy Seal. One of them was this:

If you make your bed every morning you will have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride and it will encourage you to do another task and another and another.
By the end of the day, that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed. Making your bed will also reinforce the fact that little things in life matter.

I’m curious to know how you feel about making your bed early in the morning.

Just so you know, September 19 is International Talk Like A Pirate Day! 😉