I realised on Sunday night as I got into bed at 12:30 am that I’ve been slacking on my bedtime.

Yes, I’m a night owl so my natural tendency is to work late because my brain is most awake then.

However, I work full-time so I don’t have the luxury of living totally in tune with my body clock.

I used to have a rule about my bedtime and, to be honest, it still exists. I’m just not following it all that well.

I like to be sleeping by 12 so I need to be in bed by 11 since I read for an hour every night – bliss!

And here’s my rule – computer off by 10:30.

I found I’d be getting to bed at least 30 minutes later when I didn’t enforce my computer rule because I forgot about tidying the desk, doing my bedtime routine, etc.

So my question to you is this - are you getting enough sleep?

Most adults don’t get enough sleep and we’re all functioning (or not) at below-par levels of productivity and simply, life enjoyment.

I need 7 hours a night. On the weekends I get an extra hour and sometimes even an afternoon nap with the babies, also known as my two-year-old twins.

Do you know how much sleep your body needs?

The other day Gretchen Rubin, the author of The Happiness Project, wrote a post asking about bedtimes.

She said something interesting in that once you set a bedtime (we now know mine is 11 or 12, depending how you look at it), if you ignore your bedtime, you’re then consciously choosing to do what you were doing instead of going to bed.

I love it!

So here’s this week’s coaching challenge:

- What is your wake-up time?
- Work back at least 7 hours. That is the time you have to be asleep by.
- How long do you need before falling asleep? Subtract that time.
- Also subtract time for your bedtime routine – face, teeth, reading, etc.
- For the next week, set an alarm or reminder in your phone or computer that says “go to bed”.
- Keep track of your productivity the following day as you start getting enough sleep and let me know how you feel by posting in the comments.
- If you need help getting control of your time, let me coach you! Email me now.

I was on a course today and got out my bits and pieces to ready myself.

If you’re interested, I like to have a highlighter ready and a notepad with a pen.

I also keep a separate place in my notepad for action steps once I get back to the office.

Anyway, my colleague next to me observed all my preparations and asked me what the best organising tools are. He knows I coach people to be more productive so it wasn’t totally random

I gave him the short answer but I thought I’d write a blog about it since I get asked this question quite a bit.

So, the short answer is I don’t believe there are any tools that are the best.

The long answer is:

We are all different, our styles are different and therefore our needs are different.

Which means the tools we need will differ from the next person.

I also think we need to be purposeful about what we want to achieve before buying a single thing.

There’s a myth going around that the latest greatest gadgets will “magically” make you more organised and productive.

That is SOOOO not true.

All the gadgets, phones, etc. in the world will not create order and organisation if you don’t first decide what your organising goals are and how you best want to achieve them.

You also still have to actually use that tool.

There are people all over the world who buy beautiful planners each and every year in the hope that the planner will make them organised.

It will… IF they write their appointments, to-dos and priorities in there, actually look at them and then take action.

I still believe a good old notebook and pen can help organise 90% of the population.

Often people get so carried away with the tool that they forget the tool is there to help them become more productive.

If you’re playing around with the tool all the time, then you’re not being very productive, now are you?

Sometimes all we need is a tiny piece of paper where we write down the top 3 things we need to get done, and then do them.

That’s it.

So, do you agree? Disagree? I’d love to know what you think.

Here are all my favourite organising tools.

P.S. Don’t forget the giveaway.

My new thing is to do my main priority items before I start reading from my Google Reader. Of course this means I’m behind with reading but the good news is I’m being far more productive.

My tackle for this week is to get a number of blogging items up to date, which are all done:

1. Write 4 posts for Clutter Control Freak
2. Create 2 PDF files for Decluttering and Time-Saving tips from this post. Please come back tomorrow to download the PDFs. In fact, there’s still time to leave your words of wisdom because I can easily add your tips to the document.
3. Blog about contest on CCF

Woohoo – now I’m busy writing tomorrow’s weekly tips newsletter. If you’re not subscribed, go here.

How do you make sure your top-priority items are done every day?

P.S. Go to my main blog page to read about the contest and about the Sunshine Organizer.